I’m sure your insight is causing the masses to rethink their calls for the government to seize and burn all copies of the book.
The author, Ramin Ganeshram, comments. She says, “We must be mindful that we don’t judge historical figures by modern viewpoints.”
http://www.cbcdiversity.com/post/137284630773/the-first-bite-slicing-through-a-birthday-cake-to
Bad plan.
Nothing she says contradicts my points above. Most appalling, in my mind, is this statement:
We need to be very careful about the word “respect” here. Does the owner of a prize race-horse respect her horse? Perhaps–but she does not respect the horse in the way you respect an equal. There’s some equivocation here, implying that Washington’s respect for Hercules contained a sense of dignity, a respect for Hercules as an individual and not as a possession. Washington was a harsh slaver, whipping slaves and even selling them, away from their families, to buyers in the West Indies.
I don’t know about you, but when I respect someone I neither torture them nor remove them permanently from everyone they love.
And yes, Hercules lived with dignity. He escaped in order to do so.
I recommend reading that blog post, and then, I recommend something I never recommend: I recommend reading the comments. THey’re a lot more enlightening than the original post.
Daddy … what happens if you can’t bake massa Washington’s cake without sugar?
Let’s not talk about that little Delia. Massa Washington done lost all his teeth and got to chew with teeth made out of elephant tusks. Your Daddy’ll make something happen!
Maybe they can put out a 2nd edition where the last chapter is about Hercules escaping.
Judging by the cover, it looks like all he did was use honey instead of sugar. BFD. 
I think there are many other, better books that could be used to teach kids about slavery. Looks like the authors sugar coated things a wee bit too much in this one.
The question, as I see it, is if every story with slaves has to be about slavery. If the book is about slavery, then certainly it would be whitewashing to ignore the various horrors and the drive to escape. But this book doesn’t seem to be about slavery; it’s about baking a cake, and the main character happens to be a slave.
To me, it seems degrading to suggest that everything about Hercules must be viewed in light of him being a slave. It was an important part of the man, sure, but he was also a chef and we can look at his talents at the latter while leaving the slave parts for other books to handle.
I wouldn’t want to present the book to a child in isolation, but neither would I for any other book. It’s the diversity in viewpoints that has value.
It’s about a man baking a cake for the man who has enslaved him, a condition of slavery so brutal that soon he’ll leave, forever, his own family to escape that brutal slavery–and his daughter will applaud his flight since it takes him to freedom.
Yeah, kind of an important part of the story there.
What you’re saying, basically, is that it’s impossible to view Hercules as a chef without also viewing him as a slave. To me, that view simplifies him as a person–makes him less of a person, in fact. Real people are multifaceted.
I would object to a kids’ book that showed slaves as mindlessly happy, without some acknowledgement of the fact that they found some ways to be happy, as people in trying or inhumane situations almost invariably can. But subtlety can be hard to come by in kids’ books.
The record is not quite so clear-cut, as your link shows. Washington respected and far more often than not didn’t break up slave marriages, unlike many of his peers; he allowed the education of his slaves even though it was against Virginia law; and he permitted aged and infirm slaves to remain at Mount Vernon until they died naturally, providing for them when many other plantation owners would sell and send them away.
We know slavery to be an evil system now; many did not think so then, and Washington was, according to most scholars, on the humane and lenient end of the slave-owning scale. Worth a read on the subject: Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow, An Imperfect God by Henry Wiencek and Founding Father by Richard Brookhiser.
And perhaps a better intro to Washington for kids than the book under discussion here: George Did It by Suzanne Tripp Jurmain and Larry Day
Bwuh? Of course real people are multifaceted–that’s what I’m saying! This book significantly downplays one of the facets of the relationship between Hercules and Washington, indeed the single most significant facet of that relationship. That’s not a good thing.
If the question is, was Washington brutal compared to other slavers, you’d be correct that it’s not a clear-cut question. But that’s not the question. The question is whether he was brutal–and in this manner, he, like every other slaver, was unquestionably brutal. Brutality was the basis of the system. Acknowledging that brutality is no more simplistic than acknowledging that artificial fertilizer is the basis of modern agriculture.
Making the point that Washington was “like every other” slaver is falling into the trap that Eonwe described, of holding that there is only one correct perspective. It’s no better, really, than saying Hercules was like every other slave, by the fact that he lived within this brutal system of slavery.
I think it is impossible to honestly depict this relationship without acknowledging the enslavement. That still doesn’t mean that it’s only right to tell it one way.
Hold up, dude. You really twisted my words here. I didn’t say he was like every other slaver. I said he was, like every other slaver, brutal. ANd that’s no worse than saying that Hercules was, like every other slave, kept enslaved through the threat of torture or removal from his family.
Those are simply definitional. That’s how slavery worked. Let’s not pretend like there was some sooper speshul version of slavery based on mutual respect and trust, where one party agreed to be a slave. When you don’t have the threats of torture and forcible removal from family, you don’t have slavery.
The specifics of Washington’s enslavement of people might vary, no question. But the underlying mechanism of slavery didn’t. And that underlying mechanism is so important that leaving it out is a massive distortion of the relationship between slaver and enslaved.
I think it’s impossible to view him as a chef to George Washington without also viewing him as a slave, because that was the sole and entire reason he was a chef to George Washington. If he had not been a slave, he wouldn’t have been baking cakes for that wooden-toothed motherfucker.
At any rate, it’s not like the book in question doesn’t also view him as a slave. That’s the problem: it shows him as a slave, and apparently not minding all that much about it, when in fact, he risked everything he had - including his family - just for a chance at freedom. Excluding that doesn’t make for a multifaceted view of the man: just the opposite. It’s a simplistic and fundamentally dishonest depiction of a real human’s life and struggles.
It wouldn’t be a good thing is this were the only material presented. But this is just one book, and we have other books available that present his different facets.
You’re saying that we can’t look at the life of Hercules except through the lens of slavery. No doubt, that is absolutely one of the ways in which to see him and understand what made him tick. But it’s not the only way. We can also use the lens of Hercules as a talented chef, which is apparently the one this book used. Neither picture is complete, but by demanding that all material use the slavery lens, you exclude other views of the man.
You don’t get to get that talented at something if you spend every moment of every day resentful of your position. I have no doubt that Hercules was able–at least for short times–to be pleased with the application of his considerable skill towards his art. He was not simply a slave chef but rather a chef.
I never said that this book was multifaceted–in fact, quite the opposite.
Again, no single work can present a complete picture. This particular book paints a fairly narrow one, but it is no more dishonest than any other work.
Do you think that every action, every choice in the life of Hercules was ultimately a function of his status as a slave? Or is it possible that sometimes the man acted as a chef, and only as a chef? That sometimes it didn’t matter if he was baking a cake for a demon or a saint, because none of that has any relevance when it comes to the application of his skills?
Gratuitous insult aside, his teeth weren’t wooden: George Washington's Teeth | George Washington's Mount Vernon
Gratuitous? The guy owned people. I can think of precious few better reasons to call someone a motherfucker.
The book is about him being a slave to George Washington. And it portrays him as being basically kind of okay with that.
That’s fucked up. The fact that you can’t see that it’s fucked up is also fucked up.