“One of the good things about everything
being so fucked up—about the culture being so ubiquitously
destructive -- is that no matter where you look -- no matter what your
gifts, no matter where your heart lies -- there’s good and
desperately important work to be done.” --Derrick Jensen
Nov. 15, 2008 (World News Trust) -- In 1850, the Fugitive
Slave Law was passed and both Northerners and Southerners were now
legally required to turn in runaway slaves. One year later, Harriet
Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s
Cabin (or Life Among the Lowly) as a
serial in an antislavery paper, The
National Era. In 1852, the Boston
publishing company Jewett published it as a book and, as they are
wont to say, the rest is history.
Widely considered to be the first social protest novel published
in the United States (and the first major novel to have a black
hero), Uncle Tom’s Cabin sold more copies -- with the
exception of The Bible -- than any book had ever sold in
America until that point with sales reaching 300,000 copies in the
first year.
Stowe’s graphic
depiction of slave life -- based on true stories -- personalized the
issue, reclaiming it from the sanitized domain of courtroom legalese.
Her story outraged some and inspired many others. To her critics, she
answered with A Key to Uncle Tom’s
Cabin in 1853 to provide
documentation that every incident in her book had actually happened.
Upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1862, Abraham Lincoln remarked:
"So you’re the little woman that wrote the book that made this
great war."
There was a time when
slavery was believed too deeply entrenched in American culture to
ever be abolished. The movement to end this "peculiar
institution" was made up of individuals willing to recognize
that some things in life are bigger than any of us. Whether they
literally risked their lives by rescuing slaves and running the
Underground Railroad or they did their part by sewing clothes or
blankets for escaped slaves or, yes, writing books like Uncle
Tom’s Cabin, the movement needed
every single one of these brave humans doing their part -- small or
large.
What seems impossible
and irreversible today can be addressed if we're willing to wake up
and do the hard work. If we’re willing to stop making excuses for
the reprehensible leaders (sic) -- both
political and corporate -- who profit from our complacency.
So, the next time you’re deciding between
watching a Will & Grace re-run or updating your Facebook
book, step up instead.
Take a good, long look into heart and an even longer look at the
choices you make all day, every day -- not from place of guilt and
shame but with a sense of revelation. Accept the challenge to be
better human being, a more responsible earthling. It takes courage to
perform self-examination. It takes courage to accept everything you
know just might be wrong. It takes far more courage to do this than
to volunteer to wage illegal and immoral wars.
Let’s face it: Things
sucked under George W. Bush. Things will
suck under Barack Obama. Things have
sucked under every president. Nothing will change until we change our
minds. We can’t be as indifferent as
those before us. They didn’t think
enough about future generations so now we have to work twice as hard.
It sucks, I know, but this not an issue of fairness. It’s about
survival.
Some
things in life are bigger than any of us. The anti-slavery movement
recognized this. Today, the entire planet is enslaved… to
profit-seeking corporations and the corrupt politicians they own
(yes, including the Pope of Hope). Are this generation’s
abolitionists ready to step up and create change? Not ask
for change, create
change.
Why not embrace your outrage and frustration
and let it challenge you, inspire you, and motivate you? Instead of
channeling your ambitions toward climbing a mountain, running a
marathon, or striving to make your first million before you’re 30,
what greater goal could any of us ever aim for than to leave the
planet much better off than how we found it?
You have nothing to lose but your chains…
Mickey Z. can be found
on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net.