Days pass, months, years and yet society is still a blur that doesn’t identify its truth.

I remember sitting in 8th grade learning about what slavery was all about. Why it happened and
how it all ended. But paying closer attention, something never seemed to add up. The difference
of knowledge and perspective on how it is taught to us students and what we take away from it.
All this time it was never outlined in detail and never taught well enough to show how
someone’s life was taken away from them, suffering constant abuse and dehumanization.
Slavery, a tremendous issue that took over the lives of many and made them wish it
never got to be the way that it was. We can see the truth from various authors that speak their
mind on how it really was instead of covering up a big piece of our history. Beloved by Toni
Morrison is the perfect exemplar of what the horror of slavery was like. Being taught the same
thing over and over again by teachers and staff who are uneducated and not fully devoted to
making sure that students apprehend the right idea of what it was like to be African American, to
work on those plantations, to get beaten for disobedience and seperated from families as they
were sold like animals. Even to this day we see the horrors of how society still mimics an idea of
slavery. One major topic being prostitution, selling humans for sex. This being a big issue
compares to being tossed around and sold to someone and suffering each day begging to be
free.
The story told by someone that has gone through it all is the most powerful piece of
history that we have today. Toni Morrison described the exact life of these slaves. The exact
struggle and pain that was not only physical but mental. The hurting of a mother who had to kill
her children because it was less pain watching them die then suffer slavery. The exact words
and thoughts of those who were sold like animals and dehumanized because they were seen as
lesser value being African American. Looking at how society runs today gives us a view of how
corrupt society is to this day and how the way we teach slavery impacts the actions of people
today.
Listening to your teachers say, “These Africans were brought over from Africa to the U.S
to work.” The misleading knowledge of those who have been teaching us students what slavery
was like when in reality it doesn’t come close to what we have been told for years. What will the
younger generation believe? That Africans came into the U.S to work? That it is right to
dehumanize someone because of their race, and take their whole life away from them? One
main concern being prostitution. “We’ve become accustomed to thinking of prostitution as a
legitimate way of earning a living, even ‘empowering’ for women. We call it ‘sex work’ and look
away. We should not.” The perspective of slavery and how prostitution is displayed today takes
a toll on younger generations that will think it is okay to be in control of humans. They do this for
what? Of course to profit themselves. It's been a world where people care about what they can
get out of it instead of looking at reality and counting everyone as equal no matter who you are.
If prostitution is a way of slavery then why do human rights campaigners support
prostitution as a job for women and the right of men? Prostitutes all over the world tell stories of
what it was like and how they are finally free from the constant abuse. “As Autumn Burris, a
former prostitute from California, who escaped in the late 1990s, told me: ‘I had to tell myself
lots of things, lots of lies, in order to keep my brain from splitting into a million pieces and me
going crazy with the continual abuse that was happening over and over and over, and the
violence that goes along with prostitution.” We hear these stories and think to ourselves why is
this happening and why is no one doing anything to stop it. Beloved by Toni Morrison focus on
the same aspects of abuse and dehumanization of humans. Morrison uses animalistic language
to describe the treatment of African Americans.” The wildness that shot up into the eye the
moment the lips were yanked back.” This instance is one of more examples to describe humans
treated as animals and abused. The words “yanked back” evokes an image of a horse being
tamed to remove the power of the horse in order to serve its master. Men that sell women for
sex remove their power, they do as they are told and serve their clients.
More and more people today are recognizing the real horrors of slavery and the
agonizing pain that came with it. The correlation with slavery and prostitution can be a valid
point to prove that it is not completely over yet. The cries of many still being held captive and
dehumanized even if it means selling someone for sex. One of many things that Beloved by
Toni Morrison outlines is the horror of being a mother during that time and what it was like to be
a slave that had the most precious things taken away from them. “Rutting among the stones
under the eyes of the engraver’s son was not enough,” (pg. 5) The word rutting holds a powerful
place in the text describing how the engraver and his son treated Sethe non-human. She was
an object to them with little importance like all the slaves at the time and currently the prostitutes
being sold like objects for the use of men. Not everything is able to come to an end if we are
taught differently about how history really was, leading society to still carry versions of slavery
that dehumanizes and abuses millions of people across the world.

“Most 'Sex Workers' Are Modern-Day Slaves.” The Spectator, 16 Aug. 2017,
www.spectator.co.uk/2017/08/most-sex-workers-are-modern-day-slaves/.

Ochab, Ewelina U. “The Transatlantic Slave Trade And The Modern Day Slavery.” Forbes,
Forbes Magazine, 23 Mar. 2019,
www.forbes.com/sites/ewelinaochab/2019/03/23/the-transatlantic-slave-trade-and-
the-modern-day-slavery/#5565896b2e55

Snodgrass, Mary Ellen. Beloved: Toni Morrison. Perma-Bound, 1994.