@article{Green_2023, place={Washington DC: American Sociological Association.}, title={Understanding the Enduring Legacies of Slavery: Teaching the Afterlife of Slavery and Social Death}, url={https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/understanding-the-enduring-legacies}, abstractNote={<p>This activity provides students with an introduction to sociologist Orlando Patterson’s theory of <em>social death</em> and historian Saidiya Hartman’s (2008) analytic of the <em>afterlife of slavery </em>to identify social problems impacting Black Americans. Sociologist Orlando Patterson’s ([1982]2020) pathbreaking historical sociological study of slave societies across the globe laid the foundation for understanding the state-sponsored, legalistic, and social dimensions that characterized slaves’ and masters’ existence within their social worlds. Patterson identifies major tenets of social death. <em>Natal</em><em> alienation</em> means that a slave’s kinship relations and family structure are intentionally destroyed. <em>Gratuitous violence</em> means that no transgression has to occur in order for one to receive violence. <em>General dishonor</em> is understood by Patterson to mean that the slave is disgraced as an ontology of being, meaning that the slave is without honor and can never be considered innocent. Historian Saidiya Hartman (2008) defines the <em>afterlife of slavery</em> as the circumstance of having, “established a measure of man and a ranking of life and worth that has yet to be undone” (6). Hartman (2008) maintains, that, “If slavery persists as an issue in the political life of Black America, it is not because of bygone days or the burden of a too-long memory, but because black lives are still imperiled and devalued by a racial calculus and a political arithmetic that were entrenched centuries ago. This is the<em> afterlife of slavery</em>, skewed life chances, limited access to health and education, premature death, incarceration, and impoverishment” (6).</p> <p> </p> <p>The activity focuses on the following questions: How does the history of slavery in the US continue to impact Black Americans in the present day? How do institutions reproduce forms of discrimination against Black Americans? Why do we understand certain acts of discrimination and unequal treatment to be more associated with the past instead of the present? How are Black Americans still suffering and why is it sometimes difficult to identify how they are suffering, when often the forms of discrimination and exclusion operate on a quotidian and everyday basis? To answer these questions, students will analyze different statistical data on Black Americans from pre-emancipation to post-emancipation, apply the theory of social death to analyze present-day racist practices and institutions, and engage with films that provide examples of the enduring impacts of slavery.  The activity aims to challenge students’ ideologies about current racial progress narratives about Black Americans’ social life by demonstrating the historical continuities of racialized disparities and how Black Americans continue to live in the afterlife of slavery.</p>}, journal={TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology}, author={Green, Venus}, year={2023}, month={May} }