Dear Benevolent White People,

         One of the strongest messages in Beloved is the message Toni Morrison is sending to her white readers: You do not get to feel remotely okay about slavery despite how “good” some Black people were treated by white slave-owners. Race is a contentious issue in the U.S. that white people do not like to talk about, but when it comes to slavery there are plenty of films on the subject to choose from; films, according to an article by Bitch Media, that “are often released in an important anniversary year and rake in the box office dollars, and often wind up hindering meaningful conversation about the legacy of slavery (Lake).” Beloved, however, does anything but hinder meaningful conversation; Morrison forces her white audience to confront not only the physical effects of slavery on African Americans (which I think we are all well aware of), but the psychological as well.

            Morrison allows readers to get inside the mind of Paul D as he deliberates on his time spent at Sweet Home: “For years Paul D believed schoolteacher broke into children what Garner had raised into men…Garner called and announced them men—but only on Sweet Home, and by his leave (260).” Despite Garner not allowing his slaves to be beaten, teaching them what they wanted to know, and even allowing the men to carry guns, the men and women of Sweet Home were denied the autonomy of a human being. The men were only “men” because a white man waved his white magical finger and declared (or “raised”) them to be so, not because he believed them to be—or they themselves believed themselves to be—men inherently. Paul D is forced to ask the question, “Did a whiteman saying it make it so? (261)” Paul cannot even confirm his own manhood because he is not sure if Mr. Garner was “naming what he saw or creating what he did not” (261). Only white men can name; only white men can create.

            Morrison forces her readers (especially white liberals) to recognize that slavery, in every aspect, was ugly—despite how supposedly benevolent some whites were at the time. Yes, slavery is an embarrassing and terrible thing for white people to confront, but silencing any truly meaningful discourse on the subject is beneficial for no one—Black or white. And lauding films that portray whites as some sort of savior or reinforce stereotypes of African Americans is counterproductive to achieving a true state of equality.

I appreciate Beloved simply for the fact that it does not let white people off the hook; it does not let us feel a little less shitty about slavery because perhaps not every white slave-owner beat and raped his slaves, or because some were perhaps “educated,” or were even allowed to buy their mother’s freedom (buy their mother’s freedom!). Beloved refuses to exonerate the oh-so-noble white man, and if equality truly is what this country is after, then every white American needs to recognize the complete ugliness of slavery and stop allowing our obsession with slavery films to gloss over its true ugliness—even for a moment.