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Monday, March 23, 2015

{#sol15} A rather serious post 23/31


hosted by Two Writing Teachers

I'm re-reading Louise Erdrich's book The Plague of Doves and I hope it's not giving too much away to say that it involves racism and there is a lynching. Earlier this year, I read The novel X by Ilyasah Shabazz and Kekla Magoon. It had a reference to lynching and contained a scene with Billie Holliday singing "Strange Fruit." It's a song I had never heard before. This is the magic of YouTube because I was able to listen to the song immediately after reading the passage. If you're familiar with it, you know the song is unsettling, and it is powerful.


Lynching isn't just hanging, but hanging someone outside of the legal system often to punish, but also to terrify people. While re-reading The Plague of Doves, I can't get a phrase out of my head, "Man's inhumanity to man." Our country has way too much history that involves hatred and oppression of a whole group of people. Doves shares a Native American perspective and X an African American perspective, but many groups of people have been seen as less than human and then treated that way.

Our society has not yet managed to heal the many wounds made over the years. We're still stuck in patterns that are damaging and sometimes even deadly. I want to be someone who interrupts these patterns. I'm becoming bolder, but it's slow growth. I keep hoping that the more I verbalize this, the more I'll speak up.

2 comments:

  1. The most difficult situations must be talked about. It is standing by in silence that breeds apathy. Thank you for speaking out. Some of man's history is disturbing.

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  2. Man's treatment of one another is disturbing. Evidence of that is too often in the news.

    ReplyDelete