The Shadow of Hate

The Shadow of Hate The documentary remarks on the origins of race and how it has affected history and its people. There has been a history of intolerance in America against the “them”, the others. “Them”, being the different, the unknown. It is clear that people are afraid of the unknown because of the uncertainty it brings thus they immediately label anything different as “them”. The ultimate concept I was able to derive from the documentary was that race is an idea created by society to further certain people; whether it be on a political, social, or economical aspect. The Shadow of Hate accounts the troubling relic embedded in our country, which is the overwhelming prejudice that has occurred in America for centuries. Quakers, Native Americans, and the Japanese-Americans are a few groups that have been significantly affected by whites’ obsession and preoccupation to remain “superior” to the rest, the “them”. The documentary even brings forth current tensions that cause rifts between our cities and communities. I found alarming how Thomas Jefferson, one of our nation’s own Founding Fathers and the principal writer of the Declaration of Independence, owned slaves and wrote how the blacks were “inferior to the whites”. The man who wrote “All men are created equal”, was the man who lived by exactly the opposite of his own words. Learning of how the slave trade became popular in America only deepened my view of people’s skewed perception of blacks. Since matters in Europe were settling down, less Europeans felt the need to relocate to America where they would pay for their voyage through servitude. When the indentured servants from Europe became scarce, it caused a labor shortage therefore farmers turned to the Atlantic slave trade where they traded goods in return for slaves. Trading people for materials expresses their view of how slaves were merely “materials” needed for their farms. Slaves were not people, they were objects, and why? Because of their skin