By restricting role availability and
by carefully defining the performance, society could create a
group personality type, and, through changing roles, society
could change personality.
Although the innovative use of personality types has
further illuminated the nature of the American slave system, it
has tended to blur the individual experiences and contributions
of millions of Africans into a vague amorphous abstraction. The
technique has provided important insights into the plight of the
slave as the victim of a dehumanizing system, but it tends to
obscure the active participation of Africans in American life.
Further, it is a crude generalization which, in fact, included
many types within it. While most slaves were plantation field
hands, there were many whose lives followed different lines and
for whom slavery was a very different experience. Some slaves
departed sharply enough from the "Sambo" image to become leaders
in insurrections. These men were usually urban slaves possessing
unusual talents, and thereby escaping much of the emasculation
which the typical slave had to endure.
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