Outside Reading 2: Slavery

A part of the book They Poured Fire on us from the Sky was about slavery. Although slavery seems abolished in the United States yet it still exists in some places such as Sudan. One of the lost boys in this book was enslaved and he says he was forced to a "faraway place where he was sold as a slave". He was then passed as a slave to different people. His jobs varied from working in the fields, cleaning, cooking and doing other difficult tasks. One of the Lost Boys, described what happened and the stories he heard while he was still in his home village. He says "However, their parents were killed and many of the sisters sold into slavery." Slavery in my mind, used to happen and has since been abolished. Yet as I read this book, I discovered that many people are still in the shackles of slavery. The conditions of being a slave were brutal. One of the Lost Boys in the book, Deng, described his experience of being a slave during Sudan's war. He said that if anyone tried to escape the escapee would be punished by death in front of all the other slaves just as an example of what could happen. Being a slave entitled very little food and none of the owners called their slaves by name. Most slave owners such as the one that Deng had called them "Black trash". This was horribly demeaning and this bombarded their emotions. Not only did slave owners attempt to break down their slaves emotionally but they also did physically. Slave owners regularly beat their slaves as the slave owner in this book did with Deng. When Deng tried to escape he was beaten nearly to death and was then sentenced to death for attempting to escape. Luckily for him, the slave owner's daughter begged for his life to be sparred and it was. His new punishment was to not be fed for several days which only made him weaker but he still had to perform at the same level as before. Not only is slavery wrong and should never happen but the conditions that exist for slaves are incredibly brutal such as the story of Deng displays. Slavery should be abolished because no human being should have to experience the horrors that accompany slavery. Having to live your life in fear of another beating, having to work for others doing strenuous labor and never receiving a cent for your labors is unjust and no one should have to live through those kind of horrors. Yet this is still going on in Sudan and people are still in slavery. To think about America and to know that slavery still exists here disgusts me. Slavery should be abolished everywhere, it is unjust to allow slavery to continue. I hope by spreading awareness of this subject will help bring awareness to those that can have more of an impact than me to stop slavery.