How familiar are you with slavery?

[Blue_Roses]

I just finished reading, Cane River, by Lalita Tademy and for those who haven't read it, DO, because it's an awesome read. It delves into the history of slavery through the eyes of a family generation. It will make you cry and it will make you mad, but one thing is certain is that you will begin to see a pattern of how positive change happens over time, but also, how this positive change will slow to a point of regression. Just when the slaves were freed and they thought things were much better, here comes the "night riders". But inevitably it always revives and begins working it's magic again.


I knew when Obama was elected, that change was in store for us--REAL CHANGE--but I really didn't think it was going to be easy or happen overnight and yes, I knew there would be disappointments. When you look at history through the lens of where we were over a century ago and where we are now, it is really remarkable.

Progress, true progress takes time, often with two steps forward and three steps back. But one thing is inevitable: change DOES happen. Perseverance is the key--something we have trouble with in this got-to-have-it-now society.

[FiveGoodMen]

1. "two steps forward and three steps back" means you're losing ground

It's change alright, but not the good kind.

[Blue_Roses]

2. well, that's the point.

it would be living in a perfect world if change happened without any recourse.

[FiveGoodMen]

3. Nope. You've got the metaphor wrong.

Three steps forward and two back might still be progress.

What you're advocating is capitulation.

[Blue_Roses]

5. ...

you can use the "metaphor" however you like. Bottom line: there will always be obstacles to your goal.

[FiveGoodMen]

10. Sorry, but if you're moving away from your goal that's a bad thing.

How can you not understand this?

[Blue_Roses]

12. moving away from a goal doesn't mean defeat.

and don't condescend me. You have no idea what I've been through myself to reach that "goal"...

[LooseWilly]

17. He's saying, within your metaphor, you are making "negative progress".

He's not making any personal judgments about you. He's saying that... if you are taking 3 steps back for every 2 steps you make forward... then for every 5 steps you take, you are going 1 step backward.

You've created a math "word problem".

If you start at point A, and you take 2 steps West (left on a map, so we'll presume you're "progressing" to the "left"), but you then take 3 steps East. At that point, you are one step further East ("right" on a map, and hence "regressing" rather than "progressing") than when you began.

If you repeat said 2 steps forward and 3 steps back, you are at that point 2 steps further East than when you began.

This is not "progress", this is "regression". That is what the poster is telling you.

You need to either change your metaphor (3 steps forward, then 2 steps back... so that you have a "net gain" of one step forward), or accept that you've made what could be interpreted as a "Freudian" slip suggesting that you are actually arguing in favor of regression, rather than progress...

[Blue_Roses]

19. you didn't answer my initial question...

or maybe you did.

The metaphor is used in a rhetorical sense. Bottom line. Are you familiar with slavery?

[LooseWilly]

34. Are you asking if I've ever been a slave?

Does "wage slave" count? I've done that...

[jberryhill]

39. No, But Read One Book, And You'll Be An Expert

[Blue_Roses]

42. Damn...just one book?

:eyes:

[jberryhill]

38. Jaysus... It Is THREE Forward And TWO Back

Unless your forward steps are significantly larger than the backwards ones.

At least get the freaking math right.

[LooseWilly]

13. Are you trying to defend the obstacles here?

Because they make for better historical fiction 146 years in the future?...

[Blue_Roses]

16. the obstacles are not the point...

and no, I'm not defending them.

[LooseWilly]

20. If the obstacles are not the point, then what is?

That progress always and inevitably happens?

Tell that to the parents and grandparents in that novel.

I find it surprising that it's not the overcoming of the obstacles being lauded, but rather your point sounds like it is a call for patience.

When the opportunity to overcome an obstacle appears, patience is not what's called for. When Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus... and there was a growing sentiment that something needed to be done... anyone who then preached patience was a fool. IMHO. It was, rather, those who "made noise" about it that are remembered by history as having been in the right.

[Blue_Roses]

22. You haven't read this book have you?

Rosa Parks and MLK were catalyst for change, but if you think they didn't face obstacles, then you really don't the history of this.

[LooseWilly]

35. So you ARE defending the obstacles?

You're confusing me here... " but if you think they didn't face obstacles, then you really don't the history of this." that sounds like you're emphasizing the obstacles, and pushing the "overcoming" part to the background... but you said earlier that you weren't defending the obstacles.

And no... I have not read the book. After reading Their Eyes Were Watching God, Beloved, The Color Purple, Ralph Ellison's the Invisible Man, Richard Wright's Native Son, and Alice Walker's In Their Mother's Gardens... I frankly don't feel like spending my time reading this book you mentioned. I'm personally not a great fan of what I call the "family tragedy" genre... and from the sounds of your description of the book... I think my life will be no less rich for not reading it.

I hope you really enjoyed reading about obstacles though. If you keep hyping that book of obstacles... if you really stick with it, patiently, then maybe you'll manage to move a couple of extra copies.

[Blue_Roses]

40. ...

what a pompous dumbass...:eyes:

[jody]

4. If you mean slavery, then one needs to study that practice in all cultures throughout history.

If you mean a single fictional account then IMO it's unlikely a reader will become familiar with slavery by reading such a book.

One may as well expect to understand the South in the 19th century by reading Gone With The Wind.

[Blue_Roses]

7. total ignorance...

to compare "Gone with the Wind" to this book--and frankly so many others.

[jody]

26. I'm so sorry you have "total ignorance". Study hard and you might overcome your difficulty. n/t

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

27. You suggested that Gone with the Wind was historically accurate towards slavery.

Between that and all your other Southern apologia, you've really got no business calling anybody else ignorant.

[jody]

29. Your post should be to #7 but perhaps you share in that posters malady. n/t

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

30. Do you have minstrel show memorabilia in your home?

Lawn jockeys, maybe?

[jody]

36. Have a good evening and goodbye. n/t

[LostinVA]

6. Oh brother -- Track 3 of "Get Back Under the Bus, Homosexuals"

[Blue_Roses]

9. oh, good grief...

:eyes:

[LostinVA]

11. Roll your fucking eyes all you want -- that's what your OP says

And, the rank insensitivity of doing that TODAY?!

[Blue_Roses]

15. rolling my eyes

has nothing to do with what's going today and for you to jump to this conclusions is flat out wrong!

It always has got to be a battle here on DU whenever someone tries to shed some "thoughts" on how this CAN happen.

[Deja Q]

23. What else is new

:(

[LooseWilly]

8. I'd say I'm about 3/5 familiar with slavery.

Give or take.

[deaniac21]

14. The Arab slavers are still in business.

[redqueen]

18. Well as you can see now, reactions are a true litmus test.

You either show the appropriate amount of outrage, or be branded as an apologist / true believer / homophobe / whaththefuckever.

[Blue_Roses]

21. I'm outraged at so many things right now...

starting with ...well, where to start?

For an 88 year-old man to shoot at a Holocaust Museum... and to think of all the ignorant rwingers propagating this makes me sick...that's a start and the list goes on...

[Ms. Toad]

33. Or, you can be silent rather than defend the indefensible.

I don't ask that you share my outrages.

I do ask that when I express my outrage you don't tell me I am not justified in being outraged, that I don't have a right to feel like I've been thrown under the bus - again, that I have no reason to feel betrayed, or that I need to wait my time, or similar condescending nonsense that minimizes the very personal impact things like today's brief by an Obama appointee have on my life, and on the lives of others similarly situated who are forced to live as second class citizens.

[malaise]

24. Thanks

Have you read Thomas Thistlewood's Diaries edited by Douglas Hall.
That's a must read account of slavery from a cruel pervert.

[Blue_Roses]

25. No, but I will check it out...

thanks:)

[marimour]

28. sounds interesting. I will add it to my list

"Progress, true progress takes time, often with two steps forward and three steps back. But one thing is inevitable: change DOES happen."

great quote. It really can apply to so many things that we struggle with in society.

[Ms. Toad]

31. True progress is mathematically impossible

with two steps forward and three steps back.

Change does happen, but the change that happens is REgress, not PROgress.

As to the real point of your post - I've been married and waiting for recognition for nearly 28 years. That's hardly "got-to-have-it-now."

Our daughter - the one we waited nearly 10 year to have in the first place - has reached adulthood and is still not legally related to one of her parents. That's hardly "got-to-have-it-now."

I have been uninsurable for 20 years; my daughter for 14. That's hardly "got-to-have-it-now."

Yes, change takes time, but as to the first two I've been waiting patiently long enough not to have to be quiet as I am insulted by a hand picked Obama AAG who argues that it is perfectly fine to discriminate against me because recognizing my marriage (that is of longer duration that most of the fools who voted for the marriage discrimination act) might cost the government money.

My poke at your mathematically illogical metaphor aside, there is a vast difference between "got-to-have-it-now" and being very angry that after more than a quarter of a century I am being told by an administration that actively courted my vote that I need to patiently sit in the back of the bus while he entertains bigoted dignitaries like Rick Warren and offensively (in both senses of the word) defends the indefensible marriage discrimination act - all the while repeatedly being told by supposed allies that the time isn't right and I can't expect instantaneous gratification.

You may not have been aware of what happened today, but this was a very bad day to post a mathematically illogical suggestion that people are being too impatient.

[Blue_Roses]

41. I'm not talking specifically about one thing...

regardless of how much you and some others try to pin it that way. And as far as my "mathematical illogical", I have Dyscalculia...:eyes:

There is more going on than just this one decision.

[KQ9]

32. School

Not more than I took in highschool and that it stopped now...just another fuck up of our ancestors

[Arkana]

37. Waffles.

Tasty waffles.


With butter and syrup.