Jane Pittmann was a very outspoken girl, given
her position in society where black people couldn’t express their feelings
feely. For a black slave girl to talk back to her mistress was a big deal. Of
course, the first incident in the novel that demonstrated this was when she was
determined to be called Jane. Since I can relate more to events of the present,
I tried to understand Jane’s stubbornness with her name, through the
transgender community and how they give much importance to how people address
them. For example, if a person was born a boy, but identifies herself with a
girl, she demands everyone to address her by her girl name and use the appropriate
pronouns. In the same manner, Jane didn’t want to have her “slave name” because
it automatically made her inferior from the white community.
Another problem that I
identified with was how Jane was getting a lower wage for being a girl and not
a women. In today’s society, women get lower wages than many men do, even
though if the woman does a better or equal job to the man. Therefore, it was
refreshing to see that Mr. Bone equaled Jane’s pay to the women’s, when he
noticed that she did an equally good job. That is exactly what the U.S
government, for example, can do with its current wages.
Upon
reflection, one can notice many problems and situations in the first book of the
novel that transcended and are still visible in today’s society.
The themes of inequality and racism in The Autobiography of Jane Pittman,
reminded me of 2pac’s 1993 hit single “Keep Ya Head Up”.
In the song, he recognizes
the different struggles of the black community (discrimination and injustice) and
encourages everybody to keep moving forward, which in the case of Pittman was
something that she had to deal with every day. However, she survived all of it
until she was 110 years old.
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