A few thoughts, simple yet revealing. The first three come from my 20th century literature class last night, and the final one from a friend reading for another class.
1. People are how they are treated.
2. “A poem should not mean, but be.” -Archibald McLerish… I’m working on a poem about Genesis 3 this week. I will post it some time, when I’m more satisfied with it. Perhaps.
3. [my fav–inspired by Pygmalion, the play by George Bernard Shaw] To think you need words, so more words allow you to think more deeply, more fully. To be fully realized, you need words. They are your tools to think. Talk about the danger/power/beauty of education! Educating an oppressed people group, like African American slaves in the eighteenth century, gives them the power to think more deeply! To become more fully human! Blows my mind…no wonder they didn’t want slaves to learn to read and write, and hesitated to “teach them religion.”
4. [Inspired by a friend] “Only the power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficient enough to save both [the oppressed and the oppressor].”
thoughtsbykiersten 