Zinn 2

In Drawing The Color Line Zinn tries to answer an interesting question. His thesis, Is it possible for whites and blacks to live together without hatred, hopes to find it’s answer in historical facts. The colonists easily saw blacks as slave labor since their culture was thought to be just as primitive as their way of life. Also because the Africans were stripped of what little they had breaking their will through disconnecting them from their culture and family. Treating them like something between livestock and human and the horrid ordeals used to get the to America also made them easy to “control”. Zinn states that once the slaves were in America the colonist used religion, discipline, harsh consequences for breaking harsh rules, and establishing a field slave/house slave hierarchy. Overall I don’t believe any disagreements or questioning of the information of what he presents can be made. It seems to be a great deal more historical and informative than the other articles that seemed to have a bias towards the non-English people in their stories. I was however interested in reading this article, as it progressed, because it was a part of history I know much less about. What I knew about slavery was mostly standard information. I knew that it was a darker part of America’s past, there was harsh treatment of blacks and those who helped them, and that racism stemmed and flourished from it. I did not know however that blacks were abducted, marched, caged, chosen, stuffed, shipped, and finally sold on a continent completely different from their home. I’ve also gained a greater heart for the African American “plight” if you will (I don’t have a better word or way to put that) and feel a greater responsibility to it’s understanding and correction.