Within my initial readings of Frederick Douglas’s narrative, I was quickly moved to a place of discomfort after reading about the horrific incidents he describes with immense details from his childhood. I kept reading through the book with the lingering question of WHY? Why am I reading this for a Voice, Noise, Sound Sense class? When I later read the article of Iggy Azalea, the comparison of how race affected these individuals was something that caught my attention. Although the inhumane actions of slavery can never compare to the racially motivated critiques that Iggy faced in her rise to fame within the rap game, the two connected in the fact that they both faced hardships due to racial predispositions. On the first page of Chapter I, in Douglas’s narrative he says, “The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege.” This lack of privilege was a racially driven practice that was forced into society’s mindset due to the subjectivity of black people during the mid to early 1800’s. Iggy cannot say that she too faced the same troubles, but can argue that the comments of her wanting “to be black” hindered her career quite a bit (Azalea 30). Again the presence of racially driven thoughts that have been imposed on society’s mindset to manipulate the way we see race and what we should expect from that specific race have continued to cause conflict in many people’s lives. Slavery was driven by the thoughts invoked into the minds of many from an early age and in turn continued to develop in society. The belief that being black must be expressed in actions, speech, and appearance continue to hinder the growth of society as a whole and have originated from slavery.
