Are You Kidding? :: Up From Slavery Booker T. Washington Essays

Are You Kidding?Booker T. Washingtons Up From bondage is an autobiography describing a mans journey from sla precise to prominence. Or is it? Mr. Washingtons complete assimilation into the exsanguinous mans world could be seen as an example of complete and total sycophancy, a lesson in sucking up. Booker T. Washington knew that in order to nurture the Tuskegee Institute, a school in the s turn uph, he would need the help of the very zip and culture that had imprisoned him and his people. Long before his association with southern, desolate schools, Booker T. Washington knew exactly what he didnt want out of life. He didnt like being poor. Being raised on a plantation, he learned very early in life, that if you appeased the white man, you could live in relative peacefulness. If you went a little further and assimilated into their culture, you could hit a certain amount of prominence. From the very beginning, Booker T. Washington learned that playing t he role of the grateful, black man would allow him to achieve his goals in life. He wrote that he had long since ceased to cherish any spirit of unkindness against Southern white people on account of the enslavement of my race(10). He goes so far as to comment notwithstanding the brutal wrongs inflicted upon us, the black man got nearly as much out of slaveholding as the white man did(10). Could he really be suggesting that anyone enslaved and stripped of an identity could possibly benefit from it? He claims that there existed no whole tone of resentment only pity among the slaves for our former owners (13). Could this statement be really realistic? If a person is to believe that anyone could feel anything but bitterness is ridiculous. The only reason for this deliberate misrepresentation of the truth must be to fulfill another agenda. He continues throughout his autobiography to continually impersonate his encounters with whites in the most favorable ligh t. General Samuel C. Armstrong, obviously a spend in the Civil War, is described as the noblest, rarest human being that it has incessantly been my privilege to meet (32).