Harriet Black

During this part of the reading, one part stuck out when I was reading. It was towards the beginning of our reading about the woman Harriet Black. The way Gaines wrote about her situation made his reader know how much slavery had a huge negative impact on the slaves. It showed that it drove slaves to do things that were out of their control, even when they were doing things right they would get punished; for exam,ple Harriet Black. Harriet Black had gone crazy because of the amount of work and repetuation she was trying to hold. She was racing another slave and was missing alot of "wire grass" and Tom Joe, the overseer of the field slave, noticed and started beating her. She was eventually removed from the planation because she went "crazy". Nothing happened to Tom Joe. All of this readings we have done really makes me wonder: how can another person do this to someone else?

Slaves got punished all the time, and sometimes for no reason, but do you ever notice how when a white overseer commits a harsh act, he never gets in trouble? Later in the reading Tom Joe beat one of Samson's boys for having the wrong attitude towards a black man. His boy was sent away, but again nothing happen to Tom Joe. Justice was never served from slavery!