Why is slavery, still slavery?

The comparison between Beloved by Toni Morrison and “Oh Freedom” by Aaron Neville by Erinn Green

    My comparison pieces are Beloved and a song called “Oh Freedom” by Aaron Neville. The song is a simple one that expresses the will of the writer not to be a slave anymore. The simplicity of the writing is overcome by the extremely obvious correlation between it and Sethe. The song only changes lyrics twice. It goes from “oh freedom,” leading the verse to” no more weeping”, and from there to “no more worry”. Then finishes with, the statement that “before I’ll be a slave I’ll be buried in my grave.” Sethe was the embodiment of this song as her will to fight against having her children suffer the perils of slavery.

    The second verse begins with the command not to weep over anymore. This is not the first verse so it kind of shifts the mood away from a gallant song about obtaining freedom to a more serious song about choices. To stop crying is a request made, in a lot of obituaries and by the person doing the eulogy, of those who attend the funeral and mourn over loved ones, and is meant for comfort. It is usually accompanied with the statement “they’re in a better place now.” This is why it seems more about choices than just a proud song about being willing to die for freedom. The actual mention of the being a slave is miniscule in comparison to all the other lines which are soothing, and seems to be a simple declaration rather than a threat. The request to stop crying also reverts back to Baby Sugg’s advice. Baby, having a hard life of continually having her kids stripped from her until she eventually wouldn’t care about them anymore. When Sethe lost her boys and would go to Baby she’d tell her that that is just how life goes in their world. This was even after Sethe made her big decision. The third verse has that same vibe of being resolved rather than a rash uprising. As if a common decision was made that death was the only option if freedom wasn’t one.

    The first and last verses simply start with oh freedom. In theatre, we use the consonants in our words to achieve goals. The hard consonant bounces off of the tongue allowing the actor to energetically jump into the next thought. The vowels; however, carry emotion. If we were to apply that same theory here that would mean “Oh” was something like an emotional wail. It could be lamentation, frustration, or weariness, or usually a combination. This tells us that the people who became so inspired by the song were really feeling what they went through. Most articles that discuss this song talk about the impact it had on the Civil Rights movement when injustice was at an all-time high; however, they don’t talk about the impact of the actual injustice. Specifically in an article on http://folkmusic.about.com/od/folksongs/qt/OhFreedom.htm, by Kim Ruehl, where she states that the song became an anthem for the movement. Which it did, but she highlighted the wrong reason. The song itself is just a vehicle for emotional release, but the decisions behind the song, and the heinous behind those decisions were the real anthem. The cries for help during huge police beatings were the real anthem. As for Sethe, the baby’s death was not what she was after, but she was very much resolved to the killing. At first it is easy to believe that her trust that the baby will make it somewhere safe in its afterlife, but because Sethe and all the people of this book are so used to bad spirits even before the spite of 124 she might not have been so sure about the baby spirit’s path. What she was sure about, though, was that no one would list her best thing’s characteristics on the animal side of the paper. She was sure that no one would violate her daughter and soil her thighs., and she was damn sure she didn’t have any other choices but death. In the movement, embodied by this song, the people felt the same way. They did not trust those telling them to wait until a brighter day came, all they had was what they knew (oppression), what they wanted (to be treated like humans), and the one thing they knew they could always escape to (God and death given by way of the predictable actions of a white person who feels threatened by a black one).

Thank you.