The Known World

At long last, an excellent read. Edward P. Jones's novel expands on a little-known footnote of history: slave-owning Negros of the antebellum South. Brings up the following questions:

What does it mean to be free? Who defines freedom? Free Negros had to carry papers to prove their freedom (and papers are transient objects). Yesterday, at bookclub, Melissa made an interesting point of how limited the society of free Negroes must have been: shunned by white people, forbidden from fraternizing with slaves. Free Negroes were still slaves, but under a different name.

How is morality constructed? The white slave-owner Robbins encourages Negro slave-owner Henry to all he can do, when God isn't looking. Fern Elston, another slave-owning Negro, justified owning slaves by saying the law didn't forbid her from doing so. Rachel, in bookclub, pointed out that this shows her refusal to accept any moral responsibility of owning slaves.

One of the justifications of slavery is its existence in the Bible. But what about "Love thy neighbor as thyself"? Is there a moral absolutism?