What I experienced before I could buy my own land for cropping was too much a problem, I would not blame any farmer who would quit after going through what I went through before buying my own land.
I went through a Tornado,which cleared half of my crop leaving me little or no profit,I was so disappointed but not to the verge of quitting. I also experienced Lost, I was beginning to feel upset at this point but I felt I need to forge further in order to get to my goals, apparently i was still going to experience more and more disappointment. I experienced Locust, which ate all my farm products, I experienced Illness it cut down my profit also but i made little which was not enough for me to buy my own farm land, then the prices drop too which made it so impossible to be a land owner, I experienced death in the family, then i was able to have a profit of $200, which in this case was not enough to get a land, my debt was deducted and i was left with the change, which ultimately means i need to work hard more. Bumper crops were experienced, in this case my hope was high thinking i will be able to buy the land but no, until i hit the jackpot and i became a land owner.
Thinking about all I went through, if I were to be a real farmer, I would have been so frustrated to the point of quitting, I really feel for the farmers then, it was not easy.
this is second classmate
Discussion Board #1 Jamie Lipscomb COLLAPSE
My experience as a sharecropper was complete failure. I attempted the exercise of signing the contract and planting my crops over and over, year after year, and never earned the necessary $200 it took to be able to buy the land. I failed 8 times. Not just 8 years, but at least 36 years! There were a couple times that I faced total loss after three or four years; but a few times, I went through years with tornadoes, death, illness, price drops and locusts. All of these setbacks; issues likely to arise during an actual year of sharecropping. All of which kept me from earning the amount needed to make the purchase of my land. There were some years where I “won” and earned the $200, but after paying the debt owed, still wasn’t enough. There were even some years that I experienced the helpfulness of a bumper crop or learned from the Grange and joined the co-op, yet it was still never enough.
During this exercise, I tried my best to imagine myself actually going through the processes described year after year. While that was obviously hard to do, I did find myself feeling disappointed, frustrated and sad. Remembering that each time I had to restart the exercise due to loss, it was a mere 10 or 15 minutes worth of “work” for me, yet would have been four or five years or more, for them. I was able to start over; actual sharecroppers did not have that ability. They had to make the difficult decisions of what equipment to buy and what they could do without that year. They actually suffered the loss of their son due to lynching or the illness of a loved one. What I found, was that I actually could not imagine having to deal with any of the emotions, the physicality of the work with no benefit, the amount of mental and physical loss suffered during those years in our history.
This exercise, while it seemed so simple, made an emotional impact. The interactiveness of the exercise helped to make it seem that much more real. In addition, the scenarios on that wheel that was spun, had very realistic explanations that helped to make the exercise feel very true to the time. I hope that I will be able to experience what it was like to earn enough to purchase the land through one of my classmate’s experiences so that I can see what success would have looked like as a sharecropper.
