Zinn Chapter 2: "Drawing the Color Line"

I think in this article Zinn is really trying to get the point across that we created this black and white difference in our society. He talks about how racism is not natural but a product of human choice, meaning that we did this, slavery was not suppost to be the fate for many African Americans. I also think that just by the title the reader can get a feel of the article. "Drawing the Color Line", we have been learning about white slaves in comparison to black slaves and the unfair treatment and different types of punnishment the two endured. White slaves were given less harsh punnishments whereas the black slaves would have a punnishment twice as harsh. I believe this was done purposly. I think that the slave owners noticed that it was possible for the white and black servents to get along and they probably thought that together they would conspire. The article also mentions that newly freed white slaves recieved 50 acres of land, in my opinion also a set up. Throughout the article it describes the African history of slavery. I was not aware that African Americans were slaves in other countries besides Europe and America. When the African Americans were taken from Africa and put onto the boats Zinn talks about the conditions on the ships. Why would the slaves be kept in such poor conditions when they were to be sold to work? Some of them died others became very ill, what kind of work would they be able to accomplish in that state? On page 25 Zinn describes how in Africa they also had tribal life like the Indians did in America and it was also peaceful and less punnishable there is even a quote that a Congolese leader said of the Portugese legal codes "What is the penalty in Portugal for anyone who puts his feel on the ground?". African slaves were also thought to have lacked two things which made American slavery the most cruel form of slavery in history, "the reduction of the slave to less than human status by the use of racial hatred, with the relentless clarity based on color, where white was master, black was slave and the frenzy for limitless profit that comes from capitalistic agriculture". In my opinion this is what made the African Americans more vulnerable to slavery, they did not know the American land (the Indians did and that is why they would have been so much harder to enslave) and fear was instilled in them indefinatly. African Americans felt inferior, on page 29 it throws out there the idea that it was both a psychological and physical system. Sadly, they thought they "knew their place" and blackness was a sign of subordiation, in the article Zinn also writes that the African Americans were vulnerable to slavery because they were helpless. These things combined would be more than enough to make someone think they were meant to be a slave. Overall I liked this article, it gave a little bit of all of it. Some history, the main points and conclusion. I am a fan of how Zinn writes because I can understand it better and therefore get more out of the article compared to other readings in which I dont quite understand. I also liked the questions at the end of the article, I am not sure if that was a mistake but it helped me, by searching though the article and answering those questions I got my ideas together better and furthered my understanding of the concepts.