MUCKRAKING

          Muckraking is the action of searching out and publicizing scandalous information about famous people in an underhanded way. Muckraking is considered an early form of investigative journalism. In the early 1900’s before World War I, muckrakers reported on topics concerning crime, politics and corruption in society and were often considered watchdogs. Muckraking is considered an early form of investigative journalism. In the early 1900’s before World War I, muckrakers reported on topics concerning crime, politics and corruption in society and were often considered watchdogs. They revealed scandal among the government and important issues that led to reform. The news today is constantly filled with stories of scandal in the government in politics. Journalists and reporters indulge in different types of reporting, especially investigative journalism and have turned into modern day muckrakers.

    After long research, I’ve found a muckraking article, written by one of “McClure’s” magazine’s journalists. It has been written on February 10^th, 2014. This article attracted my attention from first words. The article’s title is “The Real Story of Slavery”. The author start his article talking about that mentioning the word ‘slavery’ most people think of the American South from the 1600s to 1800s but according to black historian Henry Louis Gates Jr., of the nearly 12 million Africans shipped across the Atlantic, only 388,000 were bound for the United States. Yet as history is told, and widely believed, the United States was the demon of the world, and is held in contempt alone for this shameful period of history.
           In author’s conviction slavery was not an American problem. It was a worldwide epidemic. Throughout history, people have been enslaved because they were vulnerable, not because of the way they looked. For most of history Europeans enslaved other Europeans, Asians enslaved other Asians, Africans enslaved other Africans.
     The author insists that it’s forgiven for student of American history to believe that Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves because American education system provides wrong ideas. The worldwide evil of slavery did not come to the end because one man made a speech. Instead there were longer processes at work. It was Africans who enslaved their fellow Africans, selling some to Europeans, some to Arabs, and keeping the majority for themselves. West Africa was a slave-trading region before, during, and after Europeans arrived.  It was primarily the British, who became the destroyers of slavery not only in Europe, but in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and everywhere else. The people who began this movement were conservative religious activists—people who today would be called the “religious right.”
     The author has also mentioned that blaming Western Culture, or America, or even racism, for slavery can only be done in complete ignorance of history. Unlike the African slaves who were at least released onto dry land, these ‘white slaves,’ were often chained to their ships or the rest of their lives.

The reason that this article has been written is to destroy people’s wrong ideas about slavery and its history. Some people still think that the slavery was America’s problem but the author assures with his facts that the slavery was a worldwide epidemic.