Book 193: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

There are only so many short books that are as memorable as this one. The life of Frederick Douglass narrated by himself is a crushing, fascinating book that will remain with me for a long time to come. Elie Wiesel's Night and Victor Frankl's A Man's Search for Meaning come to mind.

I picked up this book from the Gutenberg Project, which allows you to download free e-books (here's the link for this one). I never knew the details of Douglass's early life. From birth, his entire life was impacted by slavery. I was disheartened to learn of his early separation from his mother which was orchestrated for one reason: to destroy the mother-child bond before it could begin.

The cruelty described within this short little book will surprise you. Though most of us are familiar with some of the horrors of slavery, Douglass describes some I've never heard before. I now understand the hardness and resolve in his eyes that is captured in not one but all of the photos I've ever seen of him.

I was quite surprised by the conclusion of this book, in which Douglass describes the profound cruelty of the "pious slave owner" who professes faith in Christ and then uses his religion to cover the most heinous crimes.

I think this book should be required reading for every American.

The Plight of Women in America

All my life I've been drawn to stories of women like Amelia Earhart, Marie Curie, Eleanor Roosevelt, Dorothy Day, Clara Barton, and Queen Esther. These women didn't ask for permission to do what they needed to; instead, they broke rules and made history. They didn't conform to social norms. They did what they thought was right. I like that, and I always have. 

Not long ago, I realized that for every women who rose above the status quo, millions lived and died in horrific circumstances that destroyed their bodies and spirits for thousands of years before me. They lived through hell.

Women were once considered second-class citizens and the property of their fathers and husbands. Yes, that was here in the U.S. In fact, it was legal for a husband to beat his wife and children, and many suffered such extreme abuse that they never recovered. Women were beaten until they could not or would not stand up for themselves. Watch The Color Purple or The Stoning of Soraya M  and let yourself feel the pain of these characters, which reflect so many other true stories that will never be told. 

Until 200 years ago, women weren't permitted to attend any institutions of higher education. They were welcome to attend grammar school, but "were at a significant disadvantage in access to most forms of higher education." Academies for women were not much more than high schools, and were "restrictive and inferior when compared to the educational opportunities available to young men." In 1836, women were able to pursue their higher degrees at only two universities in the whole United States. Men had no such restrictions, and flourished. 

Women kept pushing to crack the glass ceiling and be elected to the U.S. Congress, despite losing election after election to male opponents. The first woman voted into Congress was Jeannette Rankin, a Republican from Montana, who served in the House of Representatives. One hundred years ago, she took her seat in the 65th Congress in 1917, a full 128 years after congress was established. (Because women couldn't vote, she couldn't even cast a vote for herself, but you know she damn well used her congressional vote to push through women's suffrage.) 

In the early 1900s, suffragettes fought to vote, a right that had been bestowed upon men in the U.S. Constitution, but had not been extended to women. In 1920, women won the battle, but not without being imprisoned, tortured, and some even killed for their activism. I still get chills thinking about the bravery of these women, and I'll always vote because of their sacrifices on my behalf. Watch Suffragette to better understand their struggles. 

The Women's Liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s - which I am so, so pissed that I missed - focused on the fact that women outnumbered men (51% of the American population) and still had nowhere near as many rights and opportunities. They focused on a variety of causes, including better pay, more higher education admissions, reproductive freedom, better employment opportunities, and among other things, dissolving the traditional gender roles so women weren't limited to domestic roles. The term "feminist" was used to describe these revolutionary women who spoke out for equality and absorbed every punch they were dealt. They are both revered and vilified by all manner of historians. 

Even now, in 2017, women are undervalued in the American workplace, and underrepresented in leadership roles, on boards, and in Congress. Women have to work twice as hard to gain the same success as their male counterparts even with superior education and experience. Look at the leadership of any Fortune 500 company and you'll see that most are overwhelmingly comprised of men, unless they are women-owned organizations. And the gender pay gap is another can of worms entirely; women still earn about 80% of what men earn to do the same jobs. And men are selected for promotions more often than women. 

Women have continued to push for equality because for hundreds of years our country has taken advantage of our strengths and all but ignored our contributions to its success. 

With the #NoMore movement, the feminism wave is rising again. Women are tired of being beat up, underrepresented, treated like doormats, and most of all, sick of being expected to continue to put up with it. And guess what? We really hate that we continue to be victims of sexual assault and abuse in this civilized day and age. Men should be able to control themselves and keep their hands to themselves, end of story.

Right now, many women who have chosen to speak out against sexual assault and abuse are being absolutely destroyed by the press and social media. They stay strong despite the onslaught of criticism, and I salute them for their bravery. Their voices will be the catalyst for positive change in our society, and I hope that even more will decide to come forward. Perhaps their voices will be the reason one abused woman will have the courage she needs to finally walk away.

Women: Assault and abuse and harassment leave deep wounds that never heal. A woman speaking out is reliving the most shameful moment of her life. She's ashamed because she was too scared or shocked to stop her assailant. She's ashamed because she's lived with this secret for her entire life and by keeping it a secret, she's protected the person who hurt her. Speaking out is the hardest thing she's ever done, and she's doing it for all of us - even those of you that choose not to believe her. One in five American women suffer assault, abuse, or harassment, so you could end up in her shoes. Wouldn't you want people to believe you if you had the guts to speak out? 

Men: Don't complain about the storm of allegations against news icons, movie stars, elected officials, and film directors. Women have been putting up with a lot of shit for a lot of years, and these guys have had it coming. If you're shocked, it only shows how ignorant you are of the horrors women have had to endure since the beginning of time. Don't act like this is something new. These guys represent the tip of the iceberg. Just support us as we get through it. The process is just like pulling weeds out of a flower bed. These stories need to be told so that we can get through this as a nation and be better as individuals.

We've been ignoring these problems for a long time, and now is not the time to strike these stories from the record and sweep them under the rug. Now is the time to listen.

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No more. No more. No more.

In my box of treasured possessions there is a card from a woman I will surely never meet: the mother of Olivia Engel, who was a six-year-old student killed in the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012.

As a parent, Sandy Hook was the worst mass shooting tragedy I could have imagined. After the dust settled, I sent letters to every family that lost loved ones at Sandy Hook, and the school's administrators graciously delivered them to the families. I told them they were not alone in their grief. I never expected a response, but Olivia's mother sent a card with a photo of her beloved daughter, smiling, in a beautiful dress on a sunny day. It was weeks - maybe months - after the shootings so it took a minute before I realized what I had in my hand. Then I cried.  

One month ago, a dude with a lot of guns killed 58 people in Las Vegas, then he killed himself. Last week another dude entered a Wal-Mart in Denver and started shooting, killing three people. Then, yesterday, Nov. 5, yet another dude entered a Texas church and killed 26 people and wounded a lot more, then he killed himself. 

Yesterday, when I saw another mass shooting appear in my AP news alerts, I was not shocked. In fact, it barely registered, emotionally speaking. A full 24 hours later, it hit me: 26 people died in the Sandy Hook shootings in 2012, and 26 people died in the Sutherland Springs shootings five years later. To the second, I had almost no emotional reaction. I got a chill down the side of my face as this realization took hold.

And then I got mad. 

I got mad because although mass shootings are outrageous to me, my mind has been confronted with so many of these tragedies it believes they are part of normal everyday life. It's simple behavioral science: we cannot continue to be exposed to the same stimuli over and over again for years on end and expect to have equal reactions every time. I am not okay with this. I am ashamed. 

I got mad because all life is precious, and each life lost to these stupid losers and their stupid guns is a waste. 

I got mad because when I go to any public gathering, I find myself checking the rafters and making sure I know the closest exits and best hiding places. I am tired of feeling powerless to do anything to protect my family and myself. I feel like a sitting duck.

I got mad because we have state representatives, senators, and presidents that moan about gun policy and never do anything worth mentioning to reduce the number of automatic weapons in our communities. We can't even write and call our representatives to make a difference, because half of them get campaign contributions from the NRA, which, by the way, still doesn't pay any taxes because it's a nonprofit. 

I got mad because we - YES, WE - have allowed this one sentence written more than 200 years ago: a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, to mean a bunch of freaking psychos can buy unlimited numbers of automatic weapons and stockpile ammunition for these literal WAR MACHINES right in our communities. There is no other purpose for an automatic weapon but to kill as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. 

I got mad because it seems like we as a country never learn. It has been FIVE YEARS since the Sandy Hook shooting, the death of Olivia Engel, 19 other elementary school kids, and six teachers and NOTHING HAS CHANGED. Heaven knows what kind of death could have been prevented had we done something, anything, about gun control 18 YEARS AGO after the Columbine High School shooting. 

Then I got mad because realized I have already forgotten so many tragedies and victims. This is a listing of all of the U.S. mass shootings since 1982 and number of fatalities compiled by Mother Jones and updated every five minutes. Like me, I'll bet you've never heard of most of these or, if you have, you've forgotten them already. Hopefully it will get your blood boiling again. Seeing it like this makes me sick. 

Finally, I got mad because I realized a lot of Americans - including those we've chosen to represent our interests in Washington, D.C. - care more about the right to bear arms than they do about our right to life.

We need to do something, and we need to do it now, because this problem is not going away. 

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