Dear Mr. Waldstreicher,

I write to you in confidence. I am sure you are aware, but my name has been in the papers. My former master, John Holt, has been inquiring about my whereabouts in these advertisements, describing me in the most contradictory of ways.

But I myself am quite intrigued by your understanding of my situation. By the definition of the word, I am a runaway. I have run away from my master to be a free man. In my new and truer identity as a free man, I have found myself in situations where I thought that I was incredibly fortunate to be a skillful printer, to be an English speaker. I have certainly used this to my advantage to prevent being caught, to gain support by allies. You call what I’ve been doing self-fashioning, almost as though I am consciously forging a deliberate identity as if I had a choice. That by wearing the clothes I wear and speaking the words I speak, I have control over my identity as a free man or an unfree man.

While I do think that I assert some control over the manipulation of my own identity, I am hesitant to say that I am the sole individual in charge of this forged identity. I can comfortably say that I am who I am and I am how society sees me because of circumstances beyond my control. For example, my master, Mr. Holt, has been the primary cause of my distress. From the whole lottery scandal to the public advertisements in the paper, I have been on edge about being discovered. As a reaction to my master’s actions, I have had to constantly change who I am without really understanding who I am.

Nevertheless, I recognize that on the shallowest level, I am a black man and on another level, I consider myself a free man. Though I have been enslaved my whole life, I can recognize that this was not the life I was supposed to lead. I was meant to be free, to be released from the shackles of slavery, to be working in trades that recognized my work. Yes, it may seem as though I was “villanous” to Mr. Holt but know that my cunning was not intended to be cruel, but rather to do what I believe is right. And to an extent, that is what I truly have control over. Knowing that I deserve to be free, I will live as a free man should live.

Mr. Waldstreicher, thank you for reading this letter. It has been cathartic, being able to tell my true thoughts to someone who has the ability to consider other people's thoughts and help them find the root of the problem.

Godspeed, Mr. Waldstreicher.

Sincerely,

C. Roberts

Questions

1) How does the rhetoric of media influence the identity of minority groups during times of slavery? How does the rhetoric of media influence the identity of minority groups today? Do you think that minority groups still possess the same ability to be self-fashioning as marginalized communities during the 18th and 19th centuries?

2) How do you think “racial passing,” brought up in Waldstreicher’s essay, compromises the integrity of the race that the individual personally identifies as versus the race that the individual is passing for? Can there be such a thing as integrity of a race?