White supremacy is a racism-fueled toxicity that’s plagued America for a very long time. There’s a lot of speculation in regards to why this ideology still exists and how it was created, but each theory holds the same logic that a lot of white people believe they’re superior to the Black race. Thankfully, there are different works out there that can help one learn their history and pinpoint the exact cause and possible solution to this plague that America is facing. The picture from The New York Public Library’s Digital Collection on Slavery, titled, “Young and likely” is an advertisement for the sale of slaves. On the advertisement, it tells the location and time of the auction for these slaves, details about the captives, such as their age, gender, and their skills. Their names, however, aren’t on the list. These details about the slaves on the advertisement are in bold letters because the slave owners want the skills of their slaves to be the first thing that a potential buyer sees because this was imperative to making profit. The advertisement also markets the sale of other goods such as mules, cattle, plantation tools, a gin stand, and a wagon. To sell people, period, let alone sell them along with animals and tools, tells us that slaves, just like the other things being sold, are looked at as nothing more than property, so they are dehumanized as so.
The advertisement can evoke the feeling of disgust for the lack of respect that whites held for Black people, and how overt they are about it–going as far as putting this on an ad that’s accessible to the public. What’s ironic about this ad is whoever created the ad tried their best to make something grotesque look presentable. Why even bother trying to make this presentable? There also lays the question: why did ads like these attract so many people? Why participate?
The poem, “On being brought from AFRICA to AMERICA” by Phillis Wheatley, connects well with this poem because the poem can precede the ad. The imagery in the poem also captures the raw hatred that whites felt towards Black people. Wheatley writes things like, “Some view our sable race with scornful eye,/‘Their colour is a diabolical die’” (line 5-6). The image of a “[color]” being diabolical communicates that the hate white people have for Blacks stems from the differences in skin color. The “diabolical die” that blacks have, in the eyes of the white people at that time, makes them believe they have justification to treat black people the way they do because of their ideology that Blacks were evil or sinful.
The advertisement and the poem complement each other because of the evident hate that lies in both works. The ad is simply taking all the raw hate that the poem is revealing, and marketing it. Instead of keeping all the hatred to themselves and/or taking it out on the slave, the slave owners wanted to share this hate amongst each other and make it into a festivity. For example, Wheatley writes “Some view our sable race with scornful eye” (line 5). Sable, meaning to dress in black, can be interpreted as something dark or unholy, which is how the whites looked at Black people during this era. The scornful eye can be a metaphor for the way Blacks were treated by whites at the hands of the slavery. This treatment received includes, but is not limited to: rape, separation of families, and physical torture. The ad is the slave owners’ way of putting this hatred in yet another vehicle to find a different way to express their scorn.
The theme that lingers between the poem and picture is: in order to uphold white supremacy in America, the white supremacists must step on the backs of the black citizens in the country. It’s important to look back at these things because it becomes easier to make connections between how white people treat blacks, or even other races in the past and the present.
Works Cited
Wheatley, Phillis. “On Being Brought from Africa to America.” Complete Writings, edited by
Vincent Carretta, Penguin, 2001.
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, The New York Public Library. “Young and likely.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47dc-491f-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
