Kindred

Kindred is like the article written by Richard Wright “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Sketch”. In the article written by Wright, he mentions how all of the Black Americans had to act in a certain way toward their white counterparts. The Black Americans needed to speak properly to them, by calling them sir and ma’am. If the Black Americans failed to do this they were beaten or killed. In the book Kindred the slaves were beaten with whips if they failed to call Mr. Weylin master, or Rufus either mister or master. They were also beaten if they failed to show respect to their masters in their voices or by the way they acted around their white masters. In the book, along with being whipped sometimes the slaves were also sold if they chose to do something or say something that Mr. Weylin did not approve of. Rufus often either yelled, or warned Dana to not call him just Rufus, and how she needs to watch what she says or else his father will beat her for not being proper.
Kindred also relates to Wright’s article because it showed how quickly blacks were to be beaten or yelled at for even the smallest acts or words. Wright mentioned how he was yelled at for even looking at a white person the wrong way, and how he was beaten for not calling a group of men, who were most likely younger than him, sir. In the book Kindred, Sam, one of the field slaves, was sold because he looked at Dana the wrong way and talked to her, which made Rufus jealous. It seemed like no matter what a black person did in either the book or the article, they were getting whipped or yelled at. Unless a black person did exactly what was expected of them by the white people they were yelled at. Even if they did exactly what was expected they never received any praise, respect, or even a simple comment like “job well done”.
The book Kindred relates to Zinn’s article “Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress”. These two relate because in Zinn’s article, he talks about how Columbus treated the Indians slaves poorly. Along with that he mentioned how if the Indians did not dig up the right amount of gold they were supposed to, they were tortured, beaten, or most of the time killed. In Kindred, when Dana was sent to work in the fields she was whipped often by the overseer because in her first try she could not cut down a cornstalk and later because she was not going as fast as the other slaves. It was also mentioned in the book how the slaves in the fields were used to getting whipped by the overseer for just about everything they did. This shows that the White Americans wanted other people of different races to do all of their hard work, and never appreciated those people who were forced to do the work. The slaves were whipped no matter how good of a job they did. They were hit so that they would work faster for a little while, and hit again if they slowed down.