Kindred

Kindred was personally a very good book to read. It really did a good job at potrying the thoughts and feelings an African-American women of present day would do back in the days of slavery. Dana was an African-American in her late twenties to early thirties that worked for an agency that employed her to do odd jobs for people. He worked there and wrought books in her free time trying to get them published and make a great profit. She had a husband (Kevin) that work the same agency job just for extra cash really, becuase the book he made sold. Dana realizes that when she gets dizzy and passes out, she wakes up in the 1800's and a boy by the name of Rufus Weylin needs her help. Dana realizes that Rufus is an ancestor even though white, and must save his life everytime she is transported back to his era of time.
There are many situations and events that occured in this book that are related to the things we have read in class. Dana learned very quickly about the Jim Crow laws that every black person must follow. They weren't directly called the Jim Crow laws in the book, but that is the name i learned them by. She learned that she had to either call a white man "sir" or "master" when talking to them directly. And the fact that you could get beaten at anytime when talking to a white person; if they thought you were talking back to the harshly or unproperly. Dana began to fear all white people and knew they were all dangerous, even little Rufus becasue he grew up to be almost as worse as his farther. Dana stood her ground though when comfronted by a white person, that too was a Jim Crow law. Just like we read in class, Dana found out how easy it is for a black person to be sold away from there families and be beaten. Another Jim Crow law was to stay inside at night when you are black because you look suspicuos otherwise. Dana knew that already but really had to boey it in the South. Free blacks could easily turn into slaves when whites tore up there papers and sold them back into slavery. It was the fact the slaves had no freedoms and couldn't even look at some white people without getting beat up or hanged in some cases. Dana also learned that black people weren't allowed to read books or know how to write, they were considered dangerous and whites didn't like it when blacks were smarter than they were.
This book also is related to the short time we talked about in class about nuses. Alice, a relative of Dana's, hung herself after she found her whole family was sold away. It just proves the fact that when people think of hangins and nuses, they also think of African Americans. It is a sad thing to think about actually because we related a group of people to a public display of horror.
But all in all, the book was very good and was very much worth the time it took to read it. It didn't even take that long because it was pretty easy to read. I love the whole thing and i'm so glad that we had to read it for this class. I have enjoyed most all of the readings but this one was the one that had my attention the most.