1883

[kpete]

Douglass, in his "Address to the people of the United States" (September 24, 1883), declared:

"Though the colored man is no longer subject to be bought and sold, he is still surrounded by an adverse sentiment which fetters all his movements. In his downward course he meets with no resistance, but his course upward is resented and resisted at every step of his progress ... The color line meets him everywhere ... In spite of all your religion and laws he is a rejected man. ... and yet he is asked to forget his color, and forget that which everybody else remembers. ... He is sternly met on the color line, and his claim to consideration in some way is disputed on the ground of color."

"It is our lot to live among a people whose laws, traditions, and prejudices have been against us for centuries, and from these they are not yet free. To assume that they are free from these evils simply because they have changed their laws is to assume what is utterly unreasonable and contrary to facts. Large bodies move slowly. Individuals may be converted on the instant and change their whole course of life. Nations never. Time and events are required for the conversion of nations."

"The practical construction of American life is a convention against us. Human law may know no distinction among men in respect of rights, but human practice may. Examples are painfully abundant "

the rest:
http://asagordon.byethost10.com/fdonct.htm

[C Moon]

1. Wow. I just remembered that when I was in elementary school (in a hugely white area of So. Calif)...

my brother had a small paperback book that taught a short history of Frederick Douglas.
I don't know where my brother got it, but I read it several times over. As such, I have always thought of Frederick Douglas as some kind of super hero.
...fwiw, I'm of Irish/German decent.

[ReRe]

3. It would be a good idea for all of us...

... to brush up on our Frederick Douglas, especially our elected political officials and appointees at this pivotal time. So glad you found that paperback book on Douglass when you was a kid.

[DeSwiss]

2. K&R

Duality Creates Conflict

Conflict of any kind -physically, psychologically, intellectually-is a waste of energy. Please, it is extraordinarily difficult to understand and to be free of this because most of us are brought up to struggle, to make effort. When we are at school, that is the first thing that we are taught to make an effort. And that struggle, that effort is carried throughout life, that is, to be good you must struggle, you must fight evil, you must resist, control. So, educationally, sociologically, religiously, human beings are taught to struggle. You are told that to find God you must work, discipline, do practice, twist and torture your soul, your mind, your body, deny, suppress; that you must not look; that you must fight, fight, fight at that so-called spiritual level which is not the spiritual level at all. Then, socially each one is out for himself, for his family.

So, all around, we are wasting energy. And that waste of energy in essence is conflict: the conflict between "I should" and "I should not," "I must" and "I must not." Once having created duality, conflict is inevitable. So one has to understand this whole process of duality not that there is not man and woman, green and red, light and darkness, tall and short; all those are facts. But in the effort that goes into this division between the fact and the idea, there is the waste of energy.

J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

- Nation-states are Granfalloons. They can't do or change anything, only people can.

[noiretextatique]

4. sad that so little has changed

In over 200 years.

[Martin Eden]

5. Frederick Douglass was a truly great American

Tragically, the legacy of wisdom he bequeathed to future generations has largely been forgotten (and was never universally embraced).