In the fourth chapter of their book, Representations of Slavery: Race and Ideology in Southern Plantation Museums, Jenifer L. Eichstedt and Stephen Small focused on analyzing the strategies that were used to describe America’s history and the institution of slavery. Eichstedt and Small decided that a majority of white-operated tour sites and plantations set up strategies that annihilate, eliminate or deflect the institution as well as those who are against segregation. This is stated by the authors as follows; ”We argue that the best way to interpret this erasure and minimization is as an example of symbolic annihilation, which suggests that slavery and people of African descent either literally were not present or were not important enough
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Eichstedt and Small state that “Thus in the short tour and video, the focus on the famous white men who lived at the site, the architecture, and the furnishings, along with the minor themes of romance and war, serves to exclude any meaningful discussion of the institution of slavery”(113). Although the discussion of the institutions of slavery is very important to the American history and identity, the tours, videos, literature and other sources are only able to provide one point of view or account of history as it was presented to their audiences. Eichstedt and Small have forgotten to include in the chapter a discussion of the sources of the information provided in the tours. Whether the tours of the plantations described were given under direction or from any character, any history of slavery told by white institutions could be viewed by the black community as patronizing and offensive and vice versa. Any written or spoken story is always recorded as the best interpretation that the author had on the topic according to their experiences and their thoughts. Eichstedt and Small force us to face a reality that includes white-centric representations that are neither a thing of the past nor the products of deliberate and purposeful racism. They help reveal the power of unconscious structural racism that forms with the communication of anyone’s point of view on a particular set of
Eichstedt and Small state that “Thus in the short tour and video, the focus on the famous white men who lived at the site, the architecture, and the furnishings, along with the minor themes of romance and war, serves to exclude any meaningful discussion of the institution of slavery”(113). Although the discussion of the institutions of slavery is very important to the American history and identity, the tours, videos, literature and other sources are only able to provide one point of view or account of history as it was presented to their audiences. Eichstedt and Small have forgotten to include in the chapter a discussion of the sources of the information provided in the tours. Whether the tours of the plantations described were given under direction or from any character, any history of slavery told by white institutions could be viewed by the black community as patronizing and offensive and vice versa. Any written or spoken story is always recorded as the best interpretation that the author had on the topic according to their experiences and their thoughts. Eichstedt and Small force us to face a reality that includes white-centric representations that are neither a thing of the past nor the products of deliberate and purposeful racism. They help reveal the power of unconscious structural racism that forms with the communication of anyone’s point of view on a particular set of