Lack of Necessities and its Impact on African Slaves by Michelle Harris

     During the last few weeks of our Freshman Seminar class, we were divided into groups of five and told to come up with a research question and a solution.  We all were scheduled to present on a certain day, and write individual blogs about how we felt about at least 2 of the groups' presentations.  The first group that stood out to me was the second group that presented on the first day of presentations.  I cannot remember the name of their group, however their topic was on how lack of necessities ad unfit living conditions had a negative impact on African slaves' health and manifests itself in current health issues.
     They came up with 3 perspectives: Clothing perspective, Psychological perspective, and Living Conditions, which all related to the group's majors.  For the clothing perspective, the group gave examples of how some slaves were not given clothing at birth and even so their clothing was not thick enough to provide warmth which resulted in babies getting sick.  They went into greater depth with the psychological perspective, explaining Maslow's theory, which is that the mental condition effected slaves' physical condition.  They went on to use the movie "Beloved" when the mother killed her oldest daughter to protect her.  In my opinion, this was a good movie to use as support of an unstable mental condition.  The last perspective they elaborated on was the living conditions that slaves were forced to live under.  Slaves suffered from sickness due to a lack of utilities and exposure to other people in the house.  There was also a lack of nutrition need to support their heavy workloads.
     Overall, in my opinion, I feel that this group was very informative.  Their research question was well researched and their power points were very easy to follow.  I also liked how they incorporated their majors into the aspects of their research question. (Fashion for clothing aspect, psychology for psychological aspect, and nutrition for living conditions.)  The only thing I struggled with while listening to this group was that they talked rather low.  However, they had such detailed power points that it made up for it.  This group did a great job in my opinion and everything was well put together.