Adam Huseinovic
March 19th 2017


“since then the master conserved the life and health of the slave for business reasons just as he did that of his horse or mule, but now the master treated the slave unmercifully and with the sole object of getting the greatest possible amount of labor out of him.”

When African Americans were actually slaves, and not forced laborers they were treated like property, or like a farm animal rather than a human being.  Now that they are considered criminal workers, they treatment of these African Americans has gotten much worse, as the sole purpose of owning them is to get as much work out of them as possible, then kill them off.  Now that they are not a business asset, they are treated worse than ever.  The significance of this quote is the fact that blacks were now being treated even WORSE now that they are free, than they were when they were enslaved.  Its like taking one step forward and two steps back.

“offering to hire him for $4 per month, help his father pay off the mortgage on a $16 horse, and allow him to come and go freely from the farm. But once a contract had been signed, Green was placed in the lockup on Pace's farm for nearly two years.”

Labor contracts and convict leasing were definitely legal in these states but the laborers took advantage of the blacks by hiring and never paying them.  This happened quite often and the punishments were supposed to strict, but hardly ever were.

“He is in an almost helpless physical condition. He suffers from a bone disease which has affected his feet, and he walks with great effort. It is said that he will be able to produce a surgeon's certificate showing he is in a terrible physical condition.”

I did like the fact that there was a rule in place for people who are sick, and cannot stand being on trial or in jail.  I believe that it is fair to give them this special treatment if a doctor can declare the sickness is real.  I believe that this is still a rule is still present in our judicial system.

"Judge Speer-- behaving more like Alabama had initially expected of Judge Jones-- fined the men $1,000 each but then immediately suspended the punishments."

Alabama insisted that there be strict punishments on people who break the new peonage rules.  However it is important to know that law enforcement and the judicial system did not take it that serious.  Most violators or persons found guilty were let off the hook fairly easy.  We see this in today's society where poor people are sentenced to 25 to life, and rich people are sentenced to house arrest.  The justice system has never been fair and it never will be.  

"The excuse that you did not know that you were violating the laws of the United States can have no legal weight, since every man is conclusively presumed to know the law."

This rule makes sense to be in place.  Everyone should know the rules of the country that they live in.  One should not be let off the hook just because they were unaware of the rules everyone else is following.  This is not a good enough reason to not be held responsible.  It is significant to understand that the laws are expected to be known by every citizen, and simply not knowing a law is not a good enough reason to break it.

Chapter 9

"America, like nothing experienced since the darkest hours of antebellum slavery. If anything, the poisoned atmosphere and accelerating disintegration of the structure of civil society more resembled to blacks a time... when white slave traders and their corrupted indigenous allies descended without explanation upon the villages of West Africa to plunder the native population."

America was at its lowest point in the race war.  Every one step forward resulted in three steps backwards.  Post Civil War racism was worse than any of the previous years, as it seemed as though blacks were getting killed off for basically any reason.  The word slavery no longer existed but the act of it definitely did, and it was even more sever now.  This is significant because most people do not understand what life was actually like for blacks after the civil war.  Most just assume it was happy and good because slavery had ended.

"A whole new genre of fiction extolling the antebellum South and an idealized view of slavery became immensely popular... books filled with stories of contented slaves and kindly masters."

Media has always been a big part of our country, and it still is.  Through different forms of media groups of people can be controlled, and have their thoughts conformed to what society wants them to be.  The quote is significant although it is simple, and I chose it because even in the 1800s people were using different forms of media to try and control the crowd.

"For a white girl to clean up the rooms occupied by a negro... is a disgrace... I have always felt that the negro was not far above the brute."

Statements like this are absolutely mind baffling to me.  I never understood racism because i don't know how one person can discriminate someone who has the SAME features that make them a human being.  Skin color is not a justifiable reason to not like someone to me.  We still see comments and statements like this today.  I just read an article about a woman who refused to serve 4 Latinas until they proved their residency.  This quote is significant because racism has not ended, it has only grown to more races.
"The popular sentiments used to justify the violence appeared to correspond with the work of a generation of American physicians and scientists in the North and South who busily translated or mistranslated the elementary evolutionary principles outlined by Darwin into crude explanations for why blacks should be returned to a mild form of slavery."

Whites went as far as trying to use science to explain reasons to justify slavery.  The thought process of some of these people confuses me.  White people thought that the mental and physical capacity of black people was different solely off the fact that their skin was a different color.  It is significant to understand that white people went through extreme measures just to justify their interests.  It is also significant to understand that this is still going on today with Donald Trump accusing Mexicans for remotely every crime committed in the United States.

"The New York Times opined in mid-July 1903 that "respectable negroes" should ban the city's bad ones.  "There are in New York thousands of utterly worthless negro desperadoes... gamblers when they have money and thieves when they have none, moral lepers and more dangerous than wild animals."

There is a lot of things wrong with this quote.  One, it is from a widely respected newspaper, it blatantly disrespects black people as a whole, and creates even more stereotypes.  Why is this quote so significant?  Because this is all still going on now, our newspapers and news channels are always pointing the finger at muslims, or illegal immigrants.  Like I said, racism didn't end it just spread out to more minorities.  There is no proof that black people are more likely to gamble, or steal than white people.  But, the newspaper made sure to make it seem that way in order to outlaw blacks even further.  Even a hundred years ago the media was targeting groups of people and controlling the society to hate, and mistreat them.