“Every tale of creation I have ever read began in a place like this-in the underworld, in the bowels of the earth, in the gloom of man’s prehistory. The cradle of life bore an uncanny resemblance to the grave, making plain the fact that the living eventually would assume their station among the ranks of the dead. Human life sprang from a black abyss, and from dust and muck we traced our beginning….
Adam and Eve were created in this filthy pit. So the British called the first man and woman plucked from the dungeon and bound aboard the slave ship, replaying the drama of birth and expulsion in the Africa trade.”
– Saidiya Hartman, Loser Your Mother, page 110.
image of a Ghanese slave hold, taken by Christina Agubretu, 2009, from http://worldmeets.us/myjoy000001.shtml#axzz2M2KvQ0nY
Racial Americana 
This quote reminds me a lot of the notion of the African-American Epic, such as Romare Bearden’s “A Black Odyssey.” Through these framings of the slave diaspora, the narrative becomes less about the profiteers and the oppressed than being about a the triumph of overcoming and surviving an epic burden and journey, conveyed in the terms of classical literature and heroism. Does this notion empower the story of African-American slavery or does it gloss over the true turmoil and violence?