The punished self

"The Punished Self describes enslavement in the American South during the eighteenth century as a systematic assault on blacks' sense of self. Alex Bontemps explores slavery's effects on the captives' framework of self-awareness and understanding. Whites wanted blacks to act out the role "Negro," forcing blacks into a basic dilemma of identity: How to retain an individualized sense of self under the intense pressure to be Negro? Bontemps addresses this dynamic in The Punished Self."--BOOK JACKET.