Our discussions this week in AIS seemed to revolve around the slave trade, and the society it created. The most interesting thing we discussed, for me, was a list of some laws that were in effect during the slave trade era. This list included the laws that one would expect: No Blacks can carry arms. No Blacks can fight against their masters. Killing a Black on the run is not a crime.
These, however, were not the interesting laws. The interesting ones were the exceptions, the only two laws that were not forbidding African-Americans from something, or allowing them to be harmed. These two laws were forbidding white men and women from marrying or having children with African-American slaves. These seemed so out of place in a society that was primarily focused on keeping the slaves down, not controlling what the masters did. I have been thing about why these laws would be put into place. They are there to widen the gap. While all the other laws were about keeping the slaves in place, those two laws were to make sure no white person ever felt sympathy or affection for a slave. With those laws in place, it was illegal to do so. It was society's and the government's way of criminalizing sympathy for things they deem to be wrong. Laws like this haven't changed throughout the years. If the government wants something stopped, they make two types of laws, each in equal measure. One type is to punish the person who did the crime. And the other type is to punish ANYONE who had a hand in the crime. This tactic ensures that no one can be sympathetic to things that are against the law, because doing so is also against the law, even if those who are sympathetic are in the right. It sheds a new light on the society that enslaved African-Americans, because they also enslaved sympathy.
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