Different Century, Same Fears

Reading Kojo's chapter in Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing was an extremely chilling experience not only because it depicted the fear and injustices that African Americans in the north had to face during slavery, but because this chapter is so relevant to today. In both situations, African Americans are free by definition, but after examining their daily life, it is apparent that this freedom is only at the surface level. The themes of African Americans fearing of the police that played a huge role during slavery continue to be major themes that are present in our country.

Kojo’s chapter devotes time portraying the fear that African Americans in the north felt towards police and authority during slavery. This fear is present when Kojo is working on the ships and one of them gets robbed. The author explains that it is standard for the police to come and question the black men working on the ship whenever a robbery occurs. This questioning of the black man is based on the assumption that it was an African American who committed the crime; this assumption is still pertinent to today. This situation parallels to African Americans being constantly harassed and followed today in retail stores as a result of employees and costumers assuming that they are criminals. Because of these timeless, racial assumptions, African Americans have been forced to move through public spaces with extreme care, purpose, and caution; these are just a few sacrifices for African American freedom.  

Another similar theme in regards of these two periods of time is the act of African American parents teaching their children how to behave with law enforcement. In Homegoing, Kojo has to carve out time to teach his children the proper way to act around police officers. Kojo feared that his children would be questioned about the validity of their freedom when the law came out that stated that escaped slaves in the north would have to be returned to the south. As a result, he drilled his children on the appropriate way to interact with an officer: with complete submission. Kojo taught his kids to act this way because he knew that if they were submissive, a police officer was less likely to send them into southern slavery. This talk is something that African American parents still have to give to their children today, in order to ensure their safety. Even in 2016, African American people are much more likely to be seen as criminals, which results in them suffering from more police harassment and brutality. In many cases, this harassment ends with the death of the African American individual. Parents are terrified that their children will suffer these same consequences because of the color of their skin, so they have this talk with their children to decrease the likelihood of this happening to them.

There are striking parallels between Kojo's chapter in Homegoing and our nation's current social and racial structures. These similarities make it shocking that these periods are centuries apart and that there has been very little progression. When comparing these two eras, it becomes apparent that some of the fears that haunted African Americans during slavery are still haunting African Americans in today’s date. With these fears in mind, one can argue that African Americans in the north and African Americans in today's date do not possess true freedom.