Anyone whose body bore the merest trace of tar was brutally whipped by the chief gardener.īut if deprivation was one form of control, a far more insidious and malicious one was the annual Christmas holidays, where gluttony and binge drinking was almost mandatory. When even this proved futile, a tar fence was erected around the forbidden fruit. ![]() ![]() "In their moral universe, they felt, 'You stole me, you mistreated me, therefore to steal from you is quite normal.' " If caught, say, eating an orange from the owner's abundant fruit garden, the punishment was flogging. "They did this by hunting, fishing, growing their own vegetables – or stealing," says Frederick Douglass Opie, professor of history and foodways at Babson College, who, of course, is named after the activist. The "hunger-smitten multitudes" did what they could to supplement their scanty diets. The difference, Douglass wrote, "between these favored few, and the sorrow and hunger-smitten multitudes of the quarter and the field, was immense." By elevating them, the slave owner was playing the old divide-and-rule trick, and it worked. These glossy servants constituted "a sort of black aristocracy," wrote Douglass. Waiting at the "glittering table of the great house" – a table loaded with the choicest meats, the bounty of the Chesapeake Bay, platters of fruit, asparagus, celery and cauliflower, cheese, butter, cream and the finest wines and brandies from France – was a group of black servants chosen for their loyalty and comely looks. Not all the enslaved, however, were so ill-fed. In truth, rations consisted of a monthly allowance of a bushel of third-rate corn, pickled pork (which was "often tainted") and "poorest quality herrings" – barely enough to sustain grown men and women through their backbreaking labors in the field. His childhood was marked by hunger and cold, and his teen years passed in one long stretch of hard labor, coma-like fatigue, routine floggings, hunger, and other commonplace tortures from the slavery handbook.ĭouglass makes it a point to nail the boastful lie put out by slaveholders – one that persists to this day – that "their slaves enjoy more of the physical comforts of life than the peasantry of any country in the world." He was parceled out to serve different members of the family. But the spotlight on one of America's great moral heroes is a welcome one.ĭouglass was born on a plantation in Eastern Maryland in 1817 or 1818 – he did not know his birthday, much less have a long-form birth certificate – to a black mother (from whom he was separated as a boy) and a white father (whom he never knew and who was likely the "master" of the house). President Trump recently described Frederick Douglass as "an example of somebody who's done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice." The president's muddled tense – it came out sounding as if the 19th-century abolitionist were alive with a galloping Twitter following – provoked some mirth on social media. He made sure to document his life in not one but three autobiographies. Douglass was acutely conscious of being a literary witness to the inhumane institution of slavery he had escaped as a young man. I’d imagine even the tame version will ruffle certain people’s feathers, so I bet the world would really burn if they tried to put this dirty version on during the Super Bowl.American writer, abolitionist and orator Frederick Douglass edits a journal at his desk, late 1870s. It’s about as subtle as a sledgehammer, and it’s meant to be that way. ![]() But it’s alright I guess, because now they’re watching amateur food videos together. What’s so naughty about this one? Well, it’s the story of a couple where the boyfriend is addicted to “frozen food porn.” We’re treated to some hot frozen food action, complete with a hidden stash and some suggestive forking. So much so that this uncensored version won’t be aired during the Super Bowl, and a tamer version will be in its place. ![]() Anyway, here’s one from frozen foods line Devour, which has positioned itself as sort of a “Hungry-Man for the modern man.” Devour has also become well-known for its raunchy advertising and this one fits right in. I generally try to avoid watching or even reading too much about them, because I still like to be surprised. Pretty much all of the big Super Bowl ads are released early online, and it’s been like that for years now.
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