Struggle With Slavery by Oni Lasana

Struggling With Slavery by Oni Lasana

Some people struggle with the issue of slavery. Refusing to see movies, read books, watch TV shows or discuss the subject. The pain still runs deep. Still Hollywood’s recent fascination focuses on “our” American story.  The movies, “Lincoln”, “12 Years A Slave” and most recently “Belle” brought to light an ongoing fascination with slave experiences.

The truth is all nations and tribes of Europe, Asia and Africa have practiced various forms of slavery.  America’s slave system, based on race or skin color of the enslaved, proved to be the most horrific and damaging system in world history. Enslavement of millions of Africans sold as merchandise to America's and Caribbean was long term damage on parallel with Hitler’s holocaust of the Jewish people.

So why do we continue to relive the tragedy of slavery as entertainment?  Reading slave narratives is depressing. I read many through tears of disgust. Yet we continue to watch movies on the subject. Awards are given to those who reproduce this gruesome history.   

“12 years a slave” a true story, opened many eyes and gave a first person account on the ramifications of the Fugitive Slave Act/Law of 1850. It brought to light how this man made law was used and sanctioned the abuses and illegal captures of free Africans living in the north.    

“Belle” a recent tale on the subject, proved to be another eye opening  biography of a “woman of color.” Dido Elizabeth Belle was raised an aristocrat, whose controversial existence planted the seed that grew into abolishing slavery in England.

Nightjohn, a little known Disney movie that I show in my Bro. Dunbar Performance Workshop in the schools where I serve as a teaching artist, teaches the priceless value of education and the monetary significance of human chattel. Profound lessons are from the point of view of a little girl. The book was written by a European man. In the movie and book, you feel this fiction is reality.

One of America’s greatest poets wrote about the struggles of slave life in America in his short stories, plays, novels and southern dialect poetry. Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906), was born free from ex-enslaved Africans. It was through the storytelling of his mother and father that he was able to capture plantation voices like no other writer in American literature, then or now.

Maya Angelou, one of his greatest admirers, penned the title of her autobiography after the first line of one of his poems entitled “Sympathy” aka “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.”

To read Dunbar’s dialect poetry is as challenging, as it is Shakespearian in delivery. He gave voice to ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Dunbar’s Standard English verses of love, life and laughter is also exquisite, soulful and uplifting.

So as we struggle with the issue of slavery in our culture, on the big screen, books, plays or narratives. We continue to learn from our past history. We strive to comprehend our human and in-human experiences, together. In the shared struggle of slavery. 

Hopefully, we will eventually find freedom, an epiphany, a collective overcoming of a bitter past. Dunbar's works offers an artistic connection that touches our hearts through educational entertainment, giving us understanding, peace and unity of a nation.      

© Oni Lasana  July 16, 2014