I wonder how it might have felt articulating the level of trauma that you must have faced. Thinking about how hard it can be talking about issues that I have today, makes it seem like what you did would be impossible. To not only live through the things that you did, but also confront, expose, and write about those things is extremely impressive and admirable.
It is crazy to think that this narrative was not as well recognized as others written by black men, because it seriously provides a necessary piece of the stories of enslaved people that we are never taught about. Thank you for being brave enough to not only relive all of your trauma, but articulate it and share it with an inherently white supremacist, misogynistic, and patriarchal society. Even today your work is barely ever talked about. I would have never known who you were if it wasn't for the classes that I take in college. Another question I think about when reading this book is how was it having to constantly be aware of your white audience and adhere to their ideas of black women while also dealing with the black audiences and their standards of respectability?
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