Dehumanization ; Walter Johnson refers to a slave as ‘a person with a price’ because like other pieces of property, slaves spent most of their time outside the market held to a standard of value but rarely priced. Any slave’s identity could be disrupted as easily as a price could be set and a piece of paper passed from one hand to another (p.19). Values always hung over their heads. This transaction of human as commodity made slaves lose their self-worth. The ripple effect is evident today. Society has been stratified into classes of human where one race is superior to the other. Currently the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of slaves only see themselves as victims of a long lasting suppression.
