The Interesting Narrative Of The Life Of Olaudah Equiano

Freedom for Granted In this country, the United States of America, we have a reputation as “The Land of the Free”, as in every man and woman that is a part of this country has the same equal opportunity to prosper. According to Albert Camus’ idea, “Freedom is only a chance to be better.” Inspiring hope, it shows that here in this country, we have many chances to become better, and by becoming one step closer to freedom; we are one step closer to becoming a better nation. I would love nothing more than to agree with this quote, but the fact that every chance our country has gotten to move on from the horrible time of slavery, we choose to stay stagnant. On the contrary, we see that people who are emancipated, or given freedom
to, appreciate their freedom once they receive it. In other words, people who have their freedom handed to them, take it for granted. While the people who have to fight for their freedom, or endure an immense amount of pain and suffering to get what they deserve. In Olaudah Equiano’s narrative, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, it shows the cruel, realistic brutality of slavery, and the horror it instills enslaved people.
When Equiano was on the boat going to Barbados, he was terrified of what was going to happen. When Equiano was on the boat leaving his home, he realized that he could never return when he wrote, “I now saw myself deprived of all chance of returning to my native country, or even the least glimpse of hope of gaining the shore” (Equiano 2). As Equiano was being taken onto the ship that was being taken to Barbados, he saw that he was leaving his home. His home symbolizes freedom. When he was taken captive, he will never have the chance to be free again. Equiano shows that from the moment he was taken away from his home he lost every chance to become better. Equiano had the chance to become better where he was, but he was taken away from his
home. Frederick Douglass, one of the most well known orators and authors in the world, who wrote “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” was a former slave. Douglass was one of the few slaves who received the opportunity to become better. Douglass’ freedom gave him the chance to be better. Douglass not only rebukes the white abolitionists in his speech but he confronts their blindness and hypocrisy when he proclaims, “America is false to the past, false to the present, and binds herself to be false to the future” (Douglass 2). In this quote, we see that Douglass is simply stating that in the case of racial inequality in America, history will repeat itself, and America will blindly just let it. This country believes that they have come so far since the time of slavery, however, since the minute African Americans were emancipated, White Americans have been harassing African Americans.
They are still doing this today. There have been many examples of prejudices against African Americans in 2014 alone. For example, Eric Garner was an African American man who was selling un-taxed cigarettes, and the New York Police Department, found him and used unnecessary force, a choke-hold, not only to detain him, but to kill him. Now, this man was not doing any harm to any one while he was being arrested, he was not resisting, yet the NYPD found it necessary to use force to detain him, after he was not resisting. A bystander took a video and in the video, you can see that Garner is saying, “I can’t breathe” “let me go” “I’m not resisting”. The worst part of this incident is that the officer, who killed Garner, was not indicted for his crime. This outrageous crime is proof that even over a century after African American slaves have been given their freedom, this country has not chosen to be better. By not giving the Crimes against African Americans seem to be a trend now, because Eric Garner is not the only African American who have been mistreated. A more famous topic was the shooting of Mike Brown. Mike Brown was an African American citizen who was stopped by Ferguson police officer, Darren Wilson, for ‘Jaywalking’ and once Mike Brown ran away from Wilson, Wilson pulled out his
gun. Mike Brown then turned around and put his hands up as a sign of surrender, and was shot 6 times by Darren Wilson, two of which went into his head. Officers cannot shoot a suspect unless they are a danger to the public or to themselves, and even when they are shot they are shot to be detained, not to be killed. The Grand Jury had decided to not indict Darren Wilson. The funny thing about this quote is that it only qualifies for the enslaved; it does not qualify for the already free. Almost every slave who became free had become better as well. The free had become worse than they were before. When the slaves were emancipated, the free whites became very unhappy, and instead of becoming better and treating African Americans as equals they chose to treat them as savages and, well frankly, still like slaves. In order for our country to prosper as a nation, we need to move past this belief that has been plastered into our minds that we are better than a certain race. In order for our country to genuinely have freedom, and become equal we need to treat each other as equals. Albert Camus’ idea is a logical one, but it does not fit into the society of the American culture today. My hope is for our country to one day treat each other as equals, and defeat this belief of superiority.