Written by Harmony Lehman
Enlightenment is a state of knowledge in which someone’s perspective changes from uneducated to one of a higher understanding. It has been historically defined in many different contexts, but they all share the core idea of the knowledge gained making the person better for it. This idea of enlightenment as merit is used in both Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Booker T. Washington’s Up From Slavery, but in very different ways. While Jacob’s definition of enlightenment lifts Black people up, Washington’s definition squanders the empowerment and equality that Black people fought for.
In Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet’s enlightenment stems from the realization that she is not, and should not be considered to be, property. Harriet, despite the pain and trauma it dredges up, tells the story of her life in Life of a Slave Girl. She is made to feel less than human through the abuse she suffers, especially from Dr. Flint, who makes her feel ashamed even when recounting the story of the pain he inflicted upon her and how she responded to it. However, this past trauma does not stop Harriet from the realization she comes to after escaping from the slave owner’s clutches and finding refuge in the North. She realizes--through her education and life experiences--that she is not property. She aims this acquired knowledge at those living in the North in a plea for empathy, not just for herself, but for the people still suffering in slavery. Harriet’s perspective contradicted the common view of the time that slaves were more property than people and empowered African Americans in the simplest way: it recognized their humanity.
In contrast to Harriet’s Life of a Slave Girl, Washington’s Up From Slavery represents this idea of enlightenment to assert superiority of some people over others. Washington goes to great lengths to get his education, and with it, he is steadily offered more and more opportunities from White people. He views himself, with this new insight into writing and reading as well as politics, as enlightened. However, instead of seeing himself as an exemplary case of African American achievement, Washington argues that this knowledge he fought for was guaranteed because of how hard he fought. He claims that only some people have merit, and those few deserve to, and will, succeed. But what, then, of those who don’t have his perceived notion of merit? According to Washington, these people don’t deserve to have certain rights that are shared by the rest of Americans. This conclusion, while not only astoundingly inaccurate (see the Tulsa Massacre, pictured below, where a successful Black village is ravaged), also assumes much and little of African Americans at the same time. It assumes that Black people should be acknowledged for their skills by White people, which is demeaning in of itself; why should Black people need the acknowledgement of their White counterparts? But it further assumes that all of the people who are not successful (which, in large part in the late 1800s, were African Americans), are not successful because they do not hold enough merit. This viewpoint only serves to demoralize African Americans.
The way we use knowledge matters. It can be used to empower or to oppress. By examining these two cases of the effects of gained enlightenment, we can see how to responsibly go about using this knowledge. We could claim ourselves simply better, and disregard those struggling. Or, we could instead use that knowledge to empathize better with those we might otherwise not completely relate to. The choice here, I believe, is a simple one. Why choose to undermine instead of understand?
