Our requests
and feedback have had an effect on the study material for the school curricula over
the last couple of years since I wrote my review on Unstoppable Women. A diversity of women
has gradually been added, for we continued to insist on the need to offer inclusive study material. It was rewarding to read a speech by Shirley Chisholm recently...
Her words inspired us to seek her book Unbought and Unbossed, which I
borrowed from the local library.
As you can see from
the photo of the book cover, the book is very old. I cherish old books
with a certain fascination: they seem to carry the memories and experiences of
people from the past. They harbor a treasure inside; they conceal a kind of
power in the knowledge they relay to us; they reveal the secrets that guide us
to comprehend how history relates to the present.
These
old books teem with life experiences that can inspire us to move forward with
conviction and hope amid the darkest times.
Progress takes persistence, patience and
knowledge. For this reason, I highly recommend this book by Shirley Chisholm,
which was first published in 1970. She was an educator and understood the power
of education and the need for equity in society. Her book is a window onto the
past and it helps to illuminate many aspects of our current reality.
Shirley
Chisholm’s mother was very strict. She did not allow her daughters to go out on
dates, but Shirley was a bookworm. She loved to spend time reading, and people were
surprised to find out that she had a flair for dancing.
People
from the Caribbean migrated to the United States in the 1920s due to failed
crops and famine. Shirley Chisholm was born in 1924. Her parents were
immigrants from Barbados who fell in love in Brooklyn. They had three daughters
who were sent back to spend a few years with their grandmother on her farm in
Barbados, because their parents wanted to save enough to assure their future in
the United States.
“Barbados is a rocky place, not lush like Jamaica or Trinidad.” Barbados has the highest literacy rate in the Caribbean.
In Unbought and Unbossed Shirley shares
the details of her childhood and youth as well as the background of her parents.
Shirley Chisholm studied to become a teacher and she completed a master in
early education. She had a special interest in protecting public education. You
will learn about her accomplishments, setbacks and struggles as a woman of
color in Congress.
It was interesting to learn about her life in
politics and how she became a Congresswoman, but, most importantly, it was
edifying to learn how she challenged the impositions of obsolete conformity to
be productive in her position as a Congresswoman. She was the first woman of
color elected to Congress in New York in 1968, representing the 12th
congressional district. Her writing is forthright, authentic and sincere.
I was impressed by her courage and
determination, but I was also mesmerized by her reflections and observations
because despite the fact that the book was published in 1970, many of her
statements are relevant today.
To be unbought and unbossed in Congress is a
merit; it paves the way to progress and good policies.
The results of the election in Wisconsin this
week show that the people of Wisconsin chose the path of Shirley Chisholm. They
refused to be bought by a billionaire, and they chose to protect public education,
the Rule of Law, fair elections and democratic principles. Shirley Chisholm
believed in the power of the ballots—not the bullets. Like Shirley
Chisholm, the people of Wisconsin refused to be bossed by a dictator who rejoices
in firing thousands of essential workers that are part of the foundation of our
Nation.
The
people of Wisconsin refused to be bossed by a dictator whose right hand
brandishes a chainsaw while he celebrates the suffering of people losing their
jobs or losing their support systems.
Soon enough the dictator will get rid of the chainsaw. He will pretend that he had nothing to do with the chainsaw. He will blame the chainsaw for the losses, to avoid assuming the responsibility for the damage he has caused. If you want to know what cowardice and weakness are like, look no further. The dictator is a good example of that.
Studying history is important to avoid making
the mistakes of the past. People in Florida would benefit from learning about
the situation of the working-class people during the late 1700s and early
1800s, when the Industrial Revolution allowed the exploitation of workers to benefit the wealthiest
people. Soon enough the dictator will try to follow the path of Florida by
going back to the late 1700s and early 1800s, a time period in which children
of the working-class families were forced to work long hours for extremely low
wages. There were no regulations to protect them. Now the legislature in Florida wants to follow the same pattern. They think it is a good idea to
deprive teenagers of sleep and to allow companies to make children work long
hours without prioritizing their education. This is not efficiency; it is a
form of slavery.
Ignorance thinks that sleep is a privilege. It is not a privilege. Sleep is a basic need, and depriving teenagers of
their hours of sleep to send them to work should be considered criminal.
Sleep is necessary for growth and also for mental and physical health. Also, using children as a cheap source of labor is unethical and a clear indicator of the fact that Republicans in Florida do not prioritize their education. As I mentioned in a previous post, education is a threat to the abuse of power of tyrants.
Dictators are eager to sabotage education in
every way they can…
It was refreshing to read Shirley
Chisholm’s reflections. She was an independent thinker who did not follow the
traps of groupthink. She was not a product of her times, because she was well ahead
of her times…Her observations resonate today. I will close the post with some
of her quotes:
“Women have
been persuaded of their own inferiority; too many of them believe the male
fiction that they are emotional, illogical, unstable, inept with mechanical
things, and that they lack leadership ability… Women should perceive that the
negative attitudes they hold toward their own femaleness are the creation of an
antifeminist society, just as the black shame at being black was the product of
racism. Women should start to replace their negative ideas of their femininity
with positive ones affirming their nature more and more strongly.”
“One
distressing thing is the way men react to women who assert their equality:
their ultimate weapon is to call them unfeminine. They think she is antimale;
they even whisper that she’s probably a lesbian, a tactic some of the Women’s
Liberation Front have encountered. I am not antimale any more than I am
antiwhite, and I am not antiwhite, because I understand that white people, like
black ones are victims of a racist society. They are products of their time and
place. It’s the same with men.”
“It is not female egotism to say that the
future of mankind may very well be ours to determine. It is a fact. The warmth, gentleness, and compassion that
are part of the female stereotype are positive human values that are becoming
more and more important as the values of our world begin to shatter and fall
from our grasp. The strength of Christ, Gandhi and Martin Luther King was a
strength of gentleness, understanding, and compassion, with no element of
violence in it. It was, in short, a female strength, and that is the
kind that often marks the highest type of man.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZjMJ_nyA88
Relevant links:
https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/trump-tariffs-economy-harris-told-you-so-rcna199722
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRsXmPhLvl0
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/5-reasons-federal-cuts-are-hitting-veterans-especially-hard
https://time.com/7266955/trump-veteran-affairs-cuts-betrayal-essay/
