Dear Reader,
Years ago, I escaped slavery; I escaped an institution that constantly bombarded me with the same message:
You are subhuman. You have no right to your own life, your body, your thoughts.
Upon arriving in the North, I was finally and permanently affirmed that these statements are simply untrue. I am more than a work dog, machine, or object of violence. I escaped the most powerful form of oppression that I could possibly imagine, but on my journey to the North, by pretending to be a white man, I was also made fully aware that I will never completely escape oppression, for in reality, I am a black woman.
When I stepped into a white man’s shoes, I became the recipient of more respect than I have ever been given in all of my lifetime. The fact that I was also stepping into the shoes of a cripple did not seem to affect this; I was white and I was a man, and therefore, I was suddenly a king, and there was nothing that could change that. I had never in my life been even shown sympathy for health ailments or injuries, but now that I was a white man, there was not a person who was not concerned for my illness. Rules were bent in my favor, for I was a king, and even crippled kings are above the law.
In my natural state, I will never reach this level of respect again; I am a black woman, and no matter how respectable, eloquent, educated, or wealthy I become, I cannot be made a king.
-Ellen Craft
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