The View from the Bottom Rail
The View from the Bottom Rail
In today’s society, racism and stereotyping occur in every aspect of life. No one should ever take anything for face value before they examine it first. In reading the narrative, “The View from the Bottom Rail” by James Davidson and Mark Lytle and “Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas” by Harold Bloom. I became very aware on how American history can be looked at as one sided or bias. Even in today’s society, there is still a lot of biasness presented in American history that is told when it is related to the history of slavery. For us to understand history, we must enable ourselves to look deeper into the articles and examine the prejudices and the source of information that is left out before accepting the validity of the article. In “The View from the Bottom Rail”, the authors James Davidson and Mark Lytle stated several facts why it is difficult for historians to recover the freedman’s point of view in regards to slavery. They questioned the validity of many sources that, if accurate, would have contained the perspective of an ex-slave. These sources included both white and black testimonies. They believed that most of our history suffers from a natural “top rail” bias, which states that the educated and wealthy are for the most part the writers of our history. They explained that the history of slavery and how it implies a lack of truth from the people that the information was obtained from because most of the black slaves could not read or write. The slaves that were literate hid it from their masters because the slave owners did not want them to read and write and try to take over or question their masters. This is why both authors indicated in that time of history that most of the written books, documents, and even diaries on slavery were written by the white masters. In the narrative ”The Life of Frederick Douglas”, the article also points out that most
In today’s society, racism and stereotyping occur in every aspect of life. No one should ever take anything for face value before they examine it first. In reading the narrative, “The View from the Bottom Rail” by James Davidson and Mark Lytle and “Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas” by Harold Bloom. I became very aware on how American history can be looked at as one sided or bias. Even in today’s society, there is still a lot of biasness presented in American history that is told when it is related to the history of slavery. For us to understand history, we must enable ourselves to look deeper into the articles and examine the prejudices and the source of information that is left out before accepting the validity of the article. In “The View from the Bottom Rail”, the authors James Davidson and Mark Lytle stated several facts why it is difficult for historians to recover the freedman’s point of view in regards to slavery. They questioned the validity of many sources that, if accurate, would have contained the perspective of an ex-slave. These sources included both white and black testimonies. They believed that most of our history suffers from a natural “top rail” bias, which states that the educated and wealthy are for the most part the writers of our history. They explained that the history of slavery and how it implies a lack of truth from the people that the information was obtained from because most of the black slaves could not read or write. The slaves that were literate hid it from their masters because the slave owners did not want them to read and write and try to take over or question their masters. This is why both authors indicated in that time of history that most of the written books, documents, and even diaries on slavery were written by the white masters. In the narrative ”The Life of Frederick Douglas”, the article also points out that most
Bibliography: 1. Davidson, James, and Mark Lytle. The View from the Bottom Rail Copyright 1986 by Alfred A. Knopf Inc. 2. Bloom, Harold, ed. Frederick Douglass 's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. New York: Chelsea, 1988.