In Chapter I, Childhood, the author begins to introduce her family dynamic. She speaks of her grandmother’s youngest son, Benjamin, describing him, and his experience being sold, as such: “He become a brilliant, good-looking lad, almost white: for he inherited the complexion my grandmother had derived from Anglo-Saxon ancestors. Though handiest then years vintage, seven hundred and twenty greenbacks were paid for him” (Jacobs, p. 7). While a seemingly simply description of Benjamin, her explanation of him as a person holds a lot of meaning about the nature of slavery and its impact on the thought process of the enslaved, specifically in regards to the concept of value.
When Linda describes Benjamin, she begins with two objectively good characteristics: “brilliant” and “good-looking.” She then goes on to indicate that he was “almost white.” Had Linda utilized two neutral and/or empirical terms to describe Benjamin, such as indicators of his height and weight, this third description would not hold as much significance. Indicating Benjamin as “almost white” would have functioned as another step in objectively describing his physical appearance. However, Linda elected to precede “almost white” with two positive assessments of Benjamin in his high intelligence and good looks. This leads us to read “almost white” as another positive aspect of Benjamin because it is logical to assume that a third descriptor that follows two objectively positive ones, would also be an indication of a positive characteristic. Following this logic, we then see Linda, an enslaved person, describing her family member in a way that indicates that appearing white, or almost white, is a positive thing.
Slaveholders were constantly physically evaluating enslaved people, including the color of their skin, in order to determine their value in trades. Therefore, this type of language and the connection between whiteness and goodness is not a novel concept in the context of slavery. However, I found it striking that Linda felt compelled to include “almost white” in Benjamin’s introduction. This demonstrates how enslaved people not only knew of the false narrative created by the culture of slavery that white is good and black is bad, but they internalized it, lived by it, and relied on it in their everyday lives. The degree of darkness that a slave’s skin held is showcased here as an important piece of how enslaved people referred to each other – important enough to break into Linda’s initial description of Benjamin. This demonstrates just how deep-rooted the attribution of positivity to whiteness was during this time that, not only was it an indicator that slaveholders used to assign value to enslaved people, but enslaved people themselves were very conscious of it, even defaulting to descriptions of other enslaved people’s whiteness/blackness. I believe this points to the idea that abolishing slavery via law could not (and did not) rid this country of the ideologies that were associated with slavery. Evaluations of skin color and the attribution of value to it was far ingrained into the society of slavery – down to the enslaved people themselves.
Questions
- Continuing on with this concept of “value,” what further significance is carried by the fact that Linda goes on to indicate the price at which Benjamin was sold after the introduction that she has given him, which I have indicated above? (I realize that in this part of the book, she is talking about how her grandmother’s children were sold, but I think that it is important that Linda indicates Benjamin’s price point as a direct follow up to his introduction, which held in it the indication of his almost whiteness)
- I have indicated just how deep rooted the notion of white = good and black = bad was during this time frame. I argue that this sentiment is unfortunately still very much present in today’s society. How does this notion of white = good and black = bad continue to play out in society today (media, politics, literature, symbolism, etc.)?