Entry #3 Howard Zinn "Drawing the Color Line"

Brian Gerker
ETHN 101
Reading Journal Entry #3
8-28-2007

Howard Zinn “Drawing the Color Line”

Thesis from “Drawing the Color Line”: “ In the English colonies, slavery developed quickly into a regular institution, into the normal labor relation of blacks to whites. With it developed that special racial feeling . . . that accompanied the inferior position of blacks in America for the next 350 years: that combination of inferior status and derogatory thought we call racism.”
In “Drawing the Color Line,” Zinn tells the accounts of the black slaves of early America. He tells how the blacks were stripped of their homes and their land in Africa and brought to America. Also, he tells how the blacks were forced onto the slave ships where they were locked up together like a can of sardines. Zinn also offers impressions of how the blacks were forced to labor the land in America for the whites because of their inability to survive without slave labor. Zinn provides details about the slave trade and how many were only looking to profit from the slaves, whether selling them or working them in the fields.
A statement that could be made to argue against Zinn would be that the colonists needed the slaves to survive, that slavery was necessary. A counterargument against Zinn could also be that the slaves needed the cruel treatment to be kept in line, or that the blacks could have rebelled if they were not properly supervised. It could be said that the whites controlling the slaves was a necessary way to ensure that the expansion of America would be a success.
After the reading, I felt that cruelty towards blacks is completely wrong. Forcing blacks of Africa to endure those long ship rides in such tight quarters is an act of great evil. Forcing people into those kind of conditions is not right. Also, I could not believe how people did not care about the African people, and only cared for their own personal gain, by selling them off for profit. I see how the white people needed their help to maintain their lives in America, but they did not need to treat the slaves so poorly. It also could have been possible for the whites to double their efforts for their survival rather than exploit a certain race for their own gain, or to use a race of people just so they can live out their expansion dreams of America.