Examples Of Cages In The Underground Railroad
Cages, Cages, Cages, do we escape them?
Cages, cages, cages of all kinds. A central theme in The Underground Railroad is Cora being trapped in a cage. Whether it was the plantation, the basement of Sam's saloon, or Martin's attic, Cora seems to be trapped wherever she goes. We think we have escaped these cages, but black people are still trapped today, but we can escape our cages through our communities. There are plenty of cages set in place for us, but we have to band together as one community in order to escape these cages. One big cage is a prison. It's hard not to find a black person who doesn't know someone in prison. For us to break down how black people get into these prisons, we first must analyze who are the ones putting them in …show more content…
To answer that question, Colson Whitehead says the first policing system in the United States was patrollers (Whitehead, P. 165), who were the ones who killed and captured runaway slaves. These patrollers are even seen in Colson Whitehead’s book The Underground Railroad on page 165, one of our main protagonists. Martin mentions patrollers to the main protagonist, Cora, when Martin says, “Around here, the closest thing to constable was the patroller." (Whitehead, P. 165) One might infer that these patrollers must be nice and just people since they were the only thing close to a constable, a constable being a peace officer, but they were quite the opposite. Martin says, “Patrollers will harass you any time you feel like it.” (Whitehead, P.165) Patrollers and police are the same concept with a different name. Now we have the question in our head: if patrollers are only here to keep us in a cage, then why won’t we flee and make our own civilizations where these patrollers won't harass us since they don’t like us in their communities? To answer the previous question, we have made our own communities without outside influence from patrollers, or as they are called today, the police; these were called maroon communities. We even see such a community in the Indiana chapter of Colson
Cages, cages, cages of all kinds. A central theme in The Underground Railroad is Cora being trapped in a cage. Whether it was the plantation, the basement of Sam's saloon, or Martin's attic, Cora seems to be trapped wherever she goes. We think we have escaped these cages, but black people are still trapped today, but we can escape our cages through our communities. There are plenty of cages set in place for us, but we have to band together as one community in order to escape these cages. One big cage is a prison. It's hard not to find a black person who doesn't know someone in prison. For us to break down how black people get into these prisons, we first must analyze who are the ones putting them in …show more content…
To answer that question, Colson Whitehead says the first policing system in the United States was patrollers (Whitehead, P. 165), who were the ones who killed and captured runaway slaves. These patrollers are even seen in Colson Whitehead’s book The Underground Railroad on page 165, one of our main protagonists. Martin mentions patrollers to the main protagonist, Cora, when Martin says, “Around here, the closest thing to constable was the patroller." (Whitehead, P. 165) One might infer that these patrollers must be nice and just people since they were the only thing close to a constable, a constable being a peace officer, but they were quite the opposite. Martin says, “Patrollers will harass you any time you feel like it.” (Whitehead, P.165) Patrollers and police are the same concept with a different name. Now we have the question in our head: if patrollers are only here to keep us in a cage, then why won’t we flee and make our own civilizations where these patrollers won't harass us since they don’t like us in their communities? To answer the previous question, we have made our own communities without outside influence from patrollers, or as they are called today, the police; these were called maroon communities. We even see such a community in the Indiana chapter of Colson