Why are autobiographies like the ones Frederick Douglass wrote important? Chill…lemme tell you a story.
As I was thinking about this blog’s topic my mind slowly swerved off topic and drifted to my favorite anime, One Piece. This cartoon, childish as it may seem, has many mature themes, including that of slavery and oppression. It explorers this theme through the World Nobles, the oppressors, and the Fishmen and the Merlfolk (mermaids), the oppressed.
In the One Piece universe the World Nobles are exactly what their name implies, they are the rulers of the world. The entire world is controlled by the World Government and the ones who have the most power and privilege are the World Nobles. These nobles are known to capture anyone and turn them into their unwilling servant, no one is safe but they particularly like to target fishmen.
Fishmen and Merfolk are people who live under the sea down in Fishman Island. Whenever these underwater creatures, who are basically the same as humans, surface up from the water they are hunted down, captured, and made into slaves. World Nobles treat them like animals, they are branded, chained, and made to do menial tasks. I read this part of the story during middle school and it really made me mad to see these Fishmen and Merfolk treated with no consideration to their well being. It disgusted me that these World Nobles could treat anyone like an object, it didn’t make sense to me that any living creature would treat some other person the way that they treated these people.
Whenever I think about the slavery and the history that America has seen I can’t produce the same emotion of disgust and hate for the oppressors. I know that slaves from the 1800’s have probably suffered much worse than these Fishmen but I just can’t seem to produce the same feelings I had when I see Fishmen being oppressed. I guess that is why autobiographies like the ones produced from freed slaves were important in fighting slavery. These story give the reader a connection to the oppressed and it triggers a powerful emotion that appeals to the human side of the reader that they can’t deny. Stories told by former slaves hold a great deal of importance and relevance than a story about a slave written by anyone other than the slave experiencing it.
That last sentence was confusing I know. Just read it again until you get it. Until then watch this scene from One Piece that really hit my heart.
OntheWarside 
I really like how you were speaking directly to the audience at the beginning and the end of your blog. I feel as if it engages the audience more. Even though I’ve never heard of the anime you mentioned in your blog, I got a pretty good glimpse of it from the comparison you made to Frederick Douglass’ autobiography. I read your last sentence 3 times for it to fully make sense in my mind but it did. Stories like these, as sad as they are, are timeless. Learning from our past to not make the same mistakes in the future is one way to look at these stories.
LikeLike