The quote that I picked was: “Such people, when they speak of ‘freedom,’ mean the freedom to oppress their kind, and to be savage, merciless, and cruel.” This quote appeals to me because it emphasizes the meaning of freedom back then. Freedom was not actual freedom as it was emphasized. It was more oppressing—the kind to have no mercy and to be cruel towards a specific group of people, which were the slaves. The meaning of freedom wasn’t meant for everyone. It was specifically just for a certain group of people—a group of people who were kept from their liberty and only used for economic work purposes.

What really stood out to me is when the chapter stated that there were three little girls playing around, acting like they were selling each other. This act not only contributes to the quote but also shows that this was normalized for children. The children grew up with this idea that freedom was limited for them.

I feel like this contributes to the current moment because, somehow, in other countries around the world, freedom is also limited. There are still people who suffer from slavery, and again, like the quote states, they do not have mercy and are cruel towards these people. Even now, in the United States and other countries, slavery has basically been abolished. Like I said, there’s still slavery, but there’s also some sort of way that we might not look into it simply. By looking into it more deeply, we can still see that some people do not have freedom. This includes certain people from certain communities, like the Latino community, African Americans, the LGBTQ community, and others, where somehow they find themselves limited in this freedom.

Even if the freedom quoted in the chapter is interpreted to be brutal, the limited freedom that people in these groups experience can be emphasized more gently through hateful words, brutal actions, or, again, words on social media.

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