Norviel's Kindred Association

I really enjoyed reading the novel Kindred. I was an easy read and was an interesting story and way of explaining slavery. This book related to many other readings/videos that we did in class. In the Richard Wright reading "Race, Class, and Gender in the United States" it relates to Kindred because the boy in Wright's writing learned how he was to act towards and around whites, much like Dana in Kindred. Dana had to learn the Jim Crow laws, much like the young boy. They were expected to address whites as master, Mrs., Mr, etc. They were neither one allowed to stand up for themselves against whites. When Dana tried to stand up for herself she got whipped, while the young boy was threatened and ended up quitting his job instead of telling the boss about his white co-workers' behavior.
In The Race Part II, it talks about how blacks were used to do work, replacing indentured servants. They decided to use blacks because if they were to run away they would be easier to identify. This goes along with the Kindred reading because there were patrol men who would ride around and look for blacks, slaves. The patrol men would assume that any black person they saw unattended was a potential runaway slave.
In the video "Eyes on the Prize" it relates to Kindred in the aspect of learning. In the movie 19 black kids were enrolled in high school. The white people did not like this and would riot outside of the schools, and threaten the blacks. Much like the movie, in Kindred, the slave owners did not want the blacks learning either. In both cases, if the blacks were to learn like the whites then the white people would not longer be as superior; the white people feared this.
Kindred also relates to the reading "Getting Off the Hook: Denial and Resistance". Much like my previous example about the learning. In Johnson's writing he has a section called Blame the Victim, in this section he talks about how maybe if the slaves were capable of learning then their lives would be better; basically saying that the whites are doing the blacks a favor by enslaving them, because without the whites help in this way then the blacks would not be able to survive. As I said before, this relates to Kindred in the way that the slave owners would not let the blacks learn.