Black Protest Tradition

Hartman and Patterson’s conversations are seen to center on the ideas of meta-aporia and social death, both of which are closely related to the subjects of slavery and white supremacy. Because they consistently discuss the brutality of slavery and the violence within it, it is discovered that their ideas on the movie Twelve Years a Slave and the novel Assata resonate. It has been discovered that Hartman and Patterson’s ideas, who later played a 12-year slave, resound throughout the narrative. The historical implication between the white master and the black slave is further analyzed and understood from various perspectives including sexual coercion, the in acceptance of the minority race as being equally human as the whites and violence observed through whippings. The resonance between the discussion od of Hartman and Patterson are brought out in the film twelve years a slave through various non-verbal filming aspects including the sounds, slave dances, music, the winks and blushes between the white males and black males, and finally the evident tense air between the two parties.

The fact that a white a woman can have a black man or woman subjected to torturous punishment for crimes witnessed or imagined explain the social crisis between the two races. Despite the masculine power of the black man, he remains vulnerable to the white woman who only needs to report the black man to the white master. The white woman is therefore in full control of the black man and can have him whipped if she feels so can as well use him to satisfy her erotic pleasures. This puts the balk man as a tool of pleasure to the white woman. Sexual coercion is common in the film twelve years a slave. The coercion is common between the white males towards black females, more than it is with the white females towards the black men. This is not to say that coercion does not happen between white women towards the black men. The pervasion of rape in the anti-black ideas is aimed at labeling the black man as libidinous and always being the one on the coercive end of the act. As brought out in Patterson and Hartman’s discussion, which are reflective of the scenes in the film, this fact is reversed.

From the quotes and discussions from sexton, Hartman, and Patterson, regarding the complexity of the idea of rape and brutality, it is agreed upon that the restraining factor building this complexity whereby sexual power goes in line with the white supremacy is attributed to the social and economic factors designed by history (Hartman, 92). The mention of a black man being raped but not being necessary penetrated is imperative of the relationships between black males and white women, where all the actions are intimately drawn around him without his will. Like it is the film, Mrs. Epps and Platt explain a tense sexual coercion which does not culminate into a physical act. Mary is seen to engage in coercive actions that does not necessary put them into contacts but sexually intimidates Platt and makes him feel sexually inferior to Mary.

The four characters that vividly explain the idea of sexual coercion and the resonance that cuts across Hartman and Patterson’s discussion are Mary and Edwin Epps, Patsey and Platt. Mary and Edwin being a white couple, who have all dimensions of control over Patsey and Platt, sit on the coercive end of all the intimate moments that are witnessed in the film. The theoretical framework of the movie is narrowed to the four characters and it them that offer necessary insights on sexual coercion. The relationship between Edwina and Patsey, unlike that of Mary and Platt, includes points whereby physical penetration is witnessed. Patsey is pushed by Edwin into engaging in intimate acts with him. Such moments are asked with confusion and a one sided superiority. Edwin is constantly on the push as evidenced by the filming and sad winks made by Patsey.

The arguments of Sexton and theoretical construction of the rape and sexual coercion stems from the idea of structural vulnerability to appropriation, perpetual ad involuntary openness which includes all the recreational uses of the blacks’ bodies. Across the two sets of couples above, sexual coercion, though not carried out in the same manner is structured equally. The black man and the black woman are thrown in an involuntary openness, making them equally vulnerable irrespective of their different genders. This is the fate of the black slave in the Americas. Mary Epps relationship with Platt is demonstrative of the white communal fantasies. The fantasies in this case intrigue Mary who likes to have the male black at his disposal, and in turn, satisfying the white societal fantasy. There are also moments when the white fantasy is satisfied by having the slaves whipped, sometimes to death.

Hartman’s arguments that the cruelty of slavery exceeded the power of description are observed in Edwin’s actions of coercing Patsey into sex at one time and whipping her brutally in the other moment. Their relationship is observed to exist because of the power Edwin has. The common humanity of all men black and white is juxtaposed by Hartman in his article. The same juxtaposition is found from the relationship between Edwin and Patsey. Despite Edwin looking at himself as superior to the black race, he is till attracted to Patsey and succumbs to the sexual desires. This humanity is explained by the manner in which he succumbs and coerces Patsey. Hartman article describes the emphatic moments when whites put themselves in the shoes of the blacks. This empathy is therefore given the term slippery because of the manner in which the white race cannot accept the manipulation of empathy which seeks to put them in the same show as their subjects. Mary Epps slips into some moments when she empathizes with the slaves. The filming of the movie stresses the fact that empathy exists but the whites who often feel it do not want blacks to know about it.

In general observation of the accounts of the two sets of couples, Patterson’s idea of social death is well brought out from the ‘use’ of the black slave in a form that depicts them as a semi nonperson. The submissiveness of blacks can only be substituted with death. The master buys the slaves life and uses t for their own pleasures. If the slave fails to observe a code of powerlessness, it might therefore be deemed appropriate for the master to terminate their living through execution. Reaching out for rationality is therefore a form of struggle by the blacks and thus forming black protest. In the film twelve years a slave, the understanding of a black’s life is seen as merchandize, which they can themselves by. The scare quotes in the two interracial relationships serve to instill the aspects of fear and respect of superiority between the couples. It often reminds the inferior party of the consequences that might befall them if they fail to remain powerless and allow themselves to be subjected to the sexual rape and brutality. This finally wrapped around d the entire idea of afro-pessimism and the observed black protests whereby death is accepted as the ultimate price for freedom.

The certainty with which people assert that all women are weaker than all men is refuted by sexton’s argument that the historical implication and the air of white supremacy have placed the white in power rank higher than that of the black man. This is based on the sexual assault and rapes which are driven by the white woman. The incidence from the film shows that the common assertion of women being weaker than all men is not true. Hartman’s discussion on the issue of consent sheds some light into the idea of women not necessarily being weaker than men. The socially build belief structuring of power puts race before gender, thus making the white more powerful than the black man. The actions of the white woman also transgress into empathy, which is restrained by jealousy. She needs no consent from the black man to do whatever she feels like doing with him. The intimate scene in the movies, which features sexual acts between Edwin Epps, and Patsey, exhibits another instance where a woman’s power wins. Patsey, though not directly has what it takes to get Edwin drooling, and breaking the rules of racial defilation by having sex with her. Power is reversed and the common mindset held by Edwin and other whites is replaced with an idea of common humanity (Northup, 27). The black woman does not have to give consent over whatever transpires between her and the white male, but their actions aid in the overall struggle and black protests against white supremacy.

From Assata’s autobiography, a common structure of violence is observed throughout the text. The persona in the text is of the idea of adopting a violent way of achieving the black liberty and edging the community out of the oppression and suffering that it is subjected into. Kamau and Assata are both living and modeling a violent structure of doing things. As the agent of black liberation, they live a life that seeks to explain the effect that the atrocities subjected to the blacks ruin everyone (Patterson, 45). The text brings out several factors of oppression to the black society. These factors are poverty, the history of slavery and the attitude given to them because of their black skin. As a result, there has been a rebellious stemming from the treatment given to the blacks by the authorities, years after slavery.

It is the constant racism ad racist society as Assata recounts that made her act I the manner in which she did. All along as a child and as the activist that she was, racist violence meant that she was to take that line of violence and everyone around her took violence as the order of the day. Their intra-racial relationship with Kamau was only to work in a violent manner, because as the black youths they were, violence would not have been an abnormality. She recounts that her life in the streets prompts her to think about the life of a black, and the fact that to be free, one should think of them as a slave. The form in which the biography has been written features alternating voices, travelling back and forth in time to bring the tribulations of the black woman and girl. By constantly being the one pushing for sex, Kamau, however, features not as one of oppressing factors present in the life of Assata. He is one of them but unconsciously drawn by factors no one understands which contribute in the process of undermining the black woman’s liberty. Unlike in the case of the film Twelve years a slave, the sexual coercion in Assata is intra-racial. Kamau fought for the same pursuits as Assata and the sexual coercions between them never felt like it was forced even on the side of Assata since there is some convincing done by Kamau.

Sex, as perceived by Assata and Kamau then, was an exiling factor from the nagging thought of the black oppression. The black couple prefers the use of violence more than setting role models that would take the black society out of the oppression that it is subjected to. The social death explains this take as being propelled by the acceptance of their inevitable oppression. The idea of looking at the blacks as semi human is common in Assata’s autobiography (McCabe, 94). This is a presentation of structural violence. Performativity violence is found in the manner in which Assata and Kamau relate intimately. Coercion however remains to be the structuring factor in a relationship of two people from the same race because of its symbolism on the national political outlook whereby it takes constant coercion for the rights and freedoms of the blacks to be granted.

Slavery and black oppression, as brought out in the book and in the movie, Assata, explains the structural factors that have kept the black race suffering oppression. The book and the film are set in different times but the common themes of black oppression and protests are observable. It is found from both texts that social death has been haunting the black race in the America, and decades after the abolition of slave trade, blacks were still viewed as second citizens in a country they were born in. There are metaphoric questions arising from the analysis of the two texts, and all bring the audience to doubt the achievement of black freedom and liberty. Sexual relationships in the two texts differ but connected with an aspect of coercion. Common amongst the supporting discussions in the analysis of the movie and the book are the issue of consent, sexuality and vulnerability. All these terms are applicable to the relationships examined and the situations surrounding the two races, blacks and whites.

Works cited

McCabe, Angus. “Assata: An Autobiography.” (2016): bsw003.

Hartman, Saidiya V. (1997). Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America. New York: Oxford University Press.

Patterson, Orlando. Slavery and social death. Harvard University Press, 1982.

Northup, Solomon. Twelve Years a Slave: With the Original Illustrations, Narrative of Solomon Northrup, a Citizen of New York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853. Seven Treasures Publication, 2013.