““The white author, educated by the black nursemaid who also cured his illnesses and accepted his first searching caresses, was the “racial democrat” who proclaimed solidarity with those lower on the social scale as long as they “showed their respect” and stayed in their place. 133 This literature had and has a resilient effect on readers’ subjectivities, creating an idealized vision of slavery that masked its cruelties and thus reconciling the present with a past (of the region and the country) that would otherwise be embarrassing and potentially contentious.””
