Slavery
Denver Moore recalls, “I worked them field for nearly thirty years, like slave, even though slavery had supposably ended when grandma was just a girl. I had a shack I didn’t own, two pairs a’ overalls I got on credit, a hog, and a outhouse. I worked them fields, planting and plowin and pickin all the cotton to the Man that owned the land, all without no paycheck. I didn’t even know what a paycheck was.” Manifestly, the abolition of slavery did not terminate the subjugation of the blacks; their enslavement endured underhandedly. Moore dwelled in scarcity, for he was not recompensed for his toil.
Art
Ron Hall trails his American dream through a trade that entails classic art: “Carefully, and one at a time, we moved three Georgia O’ Keefe paintings from the Mercedes to the Falcon. Together, the paintings were valued ay just shy of $1 million. Two years earlier I had sold the same collection- two of O’Keefee’s iconic flower paintings and one of a skull- to a wildly wealthy south Texas woman for half a million dollars. When she tore a personal check for the full amount from her Hermes leather checkbook…the new buyer, an elegant, fiftyish woman who owned the finest apartments on Madison Avenue and probably wore pearls while bathing…was too far rich to negotiate the “1 million price tag.” Palpably, dealing in classic art is a prolific business which bids substantial proceeds which are contributing to renovating Hall’s social standing. The target customers’ disposition to pay great price for the paintings suggests that the art is substantial in their American dream. For the well-heeled purchasers, possessing the paintings pacifies their craving for the artistic utility which is exemplified in the commendable paintings.
