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  • Essay / How Personal Experience Helped A. Stuart Write Sugar in The Blood

    When preparing a research paper, the author must make a decision about how much influence he wants his personal thoughts and feelings have. On the one hand, the author may choose to remain as objective as possible and present facts and events in a way that allows the reader to form their own thoughts and opinions. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the author uses their personal beliefs to present information in a way that leads their readership to a particular conclusion. The author of “Sugar in the Blood,” Andrea Stuart chose the latter method to present her findings. Stuart uses his personal feelings and connection to his findings to create a compelling argument that makes readers feel sympathetic, even furious. The general nature of this article speaks volumes about the nature of personal biases that contribute to the creation of persuasive arguments. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay The underlying social critique in “Sugar in the Blood” is most obviously the concept of whiteness. “Whiteness has become associated with social superiority and blackness with poverty and inferiority. » (Stuart, 87 years old)[1]. Stuart does not approach this subject lightly and it becomes very apparent how deeply attached she is to the racial roles assigned to 17th century Barbados. The most interesting part of Stuart's argument is not the concept of whiteness itself, as it has been addressed countless times in various fields of study, but the explanation of the process by which whiteness whiteness is born in this particular society. “The first thing to establish is that whiteness has no stable consensus meaning and has been conceptualized in a number of different, but not mutually exclusive, forms. It is above all a lens through which particular aspects of social relations can be understood. (Garner, 1)[2]. The concept of whiteness is not a universal term and a single definition cannot be used for every environment and situation. Whiteness is a broad term generally used to refer to the preferential treatment white people receive over members of another skin color. “If Barbadians helped to invent the concept of whiteness and the privileges intrinsically linked to it, they also, by extension, helped to invent blackness and the disadvantages associated with it. » (Stuart, 86 years old). Stuart's particular research focused more on black members of society and the parallel concept of blackness in order to emphasize the treatment these people had to endure. Perhaps the most important points Stuart made conveyed the message that slaves were not just forced laborers, they were less than human and the mistreatment they suffered was nothing out of the ordinary. “So the slaves' journey to the New World ended as it began: in a whirlwind of sorrow, fear and horror. For those who were not bought, due to health problems or old age, the end of the story was even worse. They were often thrown overboard, and some jumped to their deaths to avoid further suffering. » (Stuart, 89 years old). These lines describing life aboard slave transport ships are the closest thing to accurately measuring the mistreatment of these slaves and it was only the first part of their journey into slavery. Taken out of context, this passage could be..