What about the elderly?
The First Amendment
Right to free speech, right to assemble, right to free press, right to address grievances
Great gift idea!!!
This book is different!
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"The Worth of Our Labor"
by Rebecca "CC" Davis
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I had to write this book to pass on some of the things I have learned about how much our labor is really worth.
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I wanted to write about some of the labor stories I've learned from history that were not taught in school.
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Why wouldn't certain people not want the majority of us to have this information?
This book is full of information you've probably never heard of before.
Read Chapter One Free
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This book is different! It is only available by mail since I am using a free website and I am not able to set up to receive payments. You cannot order this book from a corporation. I published it myself so that I could have the freedom to write about the information I cover in this book.
To order your copy send my an email at the email address below for instructions.
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Aaaghhh!
I am so sick of my job!!!
C. Wright Mills
Sociologist, Author, Professor
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What is "The Cheerful Robot?"
The term, "Cheerful Robot" was coined by Sociologist, C. Wright Mills in his book, "The Sociological Imagination." Mills described a cheerful robot as an adaptable human being. He felt that, even in his time (the book was published in 1959) modern man had given in to rationalizing his life. Caught up in bureaucratic systems, most people felt as though they didn't have a choice but to follow along with society's rules whether they actually made sense or not. He wrote that he hoped people would use the concept of the "sociological imagination" to confront the cheerful robot. Maybe, those of us who have trouble adapting are becoming more aware of our own power.
Knowledge is power and, although, the world is moving at a fast pace and many of us are getting swept along by the tide... I think we can find a way to reason as individuals, and with our fellow citizens if we can take Professor Mills' advice. Mills writes in the first chapter of his book... "What they need, and what they feel they need, is a quality of mind that will help them to use information and to develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and of what may be happening within themselves. It is this quality, I am going to contend, the journalists and scholars, artists and publics, scientists and editors are coming to expect of what may be called the sociological imagination."
The sociological imagination is understanding where you are in history. It is looking at your biography compared to the people who are living at the same time period as you are. The sociological imagination takes a certain "quality of mind" necessary to reason rather than rationalize what is going on around you. Mills tells us that it helps us to recognize how our "private troubles" are connected to "public issues." Mills urges people to use the sociological imagination to break out of the uneasiness and indifference felt by staying mired in the life of a cheerful robot. He feels that people who become cheerful robots without realizing it always have a certain uneasiness, or they learn to adapt and live with the indifference of knowing they don't have the power to change anything.
I have decided to take Mills' advice to use my life experience and the social imagination to confront the cheerful robot in myself and others. I see the very fine line between living in a democratic society and losing that freedom because of "not knowing what do." I strongly believe in the concepts of "power in numbers" and "knowledge is power." My inability to adapt to so many things in my lifetime has given me quite a few "stories" and Professor Mills encouraged all of us to share those stories. This website is my platform for doing so and I would like to invite others to do the same.
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Max Weber did not think modern man would be more "enlightened." Instead, he believed modern man would be a "new character type, a technical as opposed to a cultured individual, a passionless, coldly calculating, and instrumentally rational actor."
Sociological thinker, Max Weber had is own idea of what modern man would be like.
Max Weber had a theory that modern day capitalism had its roots in protestant beliefs from the seventeenth century. This concept seems to have led to the opposite belief... If hard work and accumulation of wealth is a sign of success, then not being successful must mean one didn't work hard?!?
Read more about "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" HERE
It takes a lot of people a long time to change a system!
The Story of My Life...
My story revolves around finances. It seems to have been my curse. No matter how hard I've worked, I've always struggled financially. After all I've been through, I realize that I am not alone. There are many people who have struggled their entire lives. There are many "working class heroes," who work hard all their lives and never seem to get ahead.
The pain of this type of struggle is rarely talked about. We know it's there. Most of us have struggled at some time in our lives so we can relate (to a degree).
The part that is difficult for many people is the "shame" and "stigma" of being poor. Dolly Parton said, "The worst thing about poverty is not the actual living of if, but the shame of it."
And, most of us can handle difficult times for a period of time, but how is it to live with constant financial struggle year after year?
Now, in early 2019, the economy seems to be doing well. There are jobs available. But, what about all the people who are stuck in low-wage jobs? What about the service people working hard every day? What are their lives like day by day?
Most of these people don't have the time to spend talking about their troubles. Many people just feel there is nothing they can do to change their lot in life.
In a country where economic class isn't really discussed in depth, struggling financially is the next trauma that needs to be brought out into the open.
The stigma that keeps people silent also keeps the cycle of poverty alive. Like the great wave of people who came forward about the stigma of sexual assault and abuse, the people who have suffered under the "shame of being poor," need their time to be heard.
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Read Chapter One free!
See link below
Read more about my thoughts on labor and poverty. If you've ever struggled to pay your bills or if you've ever lived in or close to poverty, this book is for you!
Or, if you've ever wondered what it was like for people who struggle financially, this book is for you, too.
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More about "The Cheerful Robot"
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Sociologist, C. Wright Mills wrote about his idea of a "cheerful robot" in his 1959 book, "The Sociological Imagination." Mills worried that modern man would continue to adapt to a type of bureaucratic life without even realizing it. He theorized that reason and freedom are extremely interconnected and that rationalizing has replaced reasoning in the bureaucratic structure of modern life.
He writes how individuals do the best they can to follow the rules of society so they can succeed. By doing so, they live in a state of "alienation" as described by Karl Marx. We live with the feeling, "This is just the way it is." We adapt to survive. We work all week and learn to "let it out" on the weekend.
He writes that deep down inside, individuals have a yearning for freedom and for the right and time to "reason" on their own. He explains his understanding of the difference between reason and rationalizing, and how rationalizing eventually denies us freedom.
Since reason and freedom are not really understood and practiced by people in the main population, people with power and resources can continue to control society in ways individuals are helpless to change. He wrote (in his time almost 60 years ago), that most individuals do not connect their personal troubles to public issues. People who can not earn enough money to get by in today's society blame themselves instead of looking at how history has been changed by people who have real influence inside the systems that are working in rational ways that are in fact, unreasonable.
Mills described "The Cheerful Robot" as an individual that either doesn't know how to reason, or doesn't want to take the energy to do the reasoning required to have a free society. It is much easier to "adapt" to the rational way of living, to follow along the rules of society and complain once in a while. He worried that by doing so, individuals in modern society were on the way to the kind of world described in George Orwell's book, "1984."
Even back when writing his book, "The Sociological Imagination," C. Wright Mills was already concerned that technology was causing human beings to be more apt to follow along rather than reason for themselves. He wrote, "The ultimate problem of freedom is the problem of the cheerful robot, and it arises in this form today because today it has become evident to us that all men do not naturally want to be free; that all men are not willing or not able, as the case may be, to exert themselves to acquire the reason that freedom requires."
C. Wright Mills
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Charles Wright Mills was born August 28, 1916 in Waco, Texas. His father was a salesman and the family moved around a lot in Texas. Mills graduated from from the University of Texas at Austin with a bachelor's degree in sociology and a master's degree in philosophy. By the time he graduated in 1939, he had already been published in two of sociology's leading journals. He earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1942.
He began working at the University of Maryland, College Park in 1941. He was an Associate Professor for four years and while there, he began writing articles that were published in "The New Republic," "The New Leader," and "Politics."
He later became a Professor at Columbia University and wrote several books that are still relevant today. Professor C. Wright Mills wrote the book, "The Sociological Imagination" to challenge sociologists, students and others to bring awareness about the problems of modern society.
Is Sociology the same as Psychology?
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Is Sociology the same as psychology? No. While both disciplines study man and his behavior, psychology is the study of the workings of the human mind and the study of man's behavior. It looks at the individual and small groups and the relationship of the individual to their surroundings. Psychologists believe that everything about the person is caused by the individual.
Sociology is the study of society and social groups. Sociologists look at society and social systems to study the effect on individuals. Sociologists research how societal behavior is linked to social relationships such as race, gender, religion and social class.
Both psychology and sociology do help us understand human emotions and behaviors better. And, both help us understand human relationships just in very different ways. Psychology looks at how the individual is affected by his own mind and behaviors and with his close relationships. Sociology studies at how the individual is affected by society and social structures.
"The Sociological Imagination"
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In his book, "The Sociological Imagination," C. Wright Mills writes that a certain "quality of mind" is needed to help sociologists and, also, the average citizen have a better understanding of their lives. In 1959, he doubted that people had the quality of mind needed to use the sociological imagination to look deeper into a situation.
Most people look at their own specific troubles and do not relate them to the social issues in the larger social structure of society. His challenge is for people to learn to connect their own personal biographies with history. He explains that without this understanding, many people "often become falsely conscious of their social positions."
Mills explained that, "No social study that does not come back to the problems of biography, of history and of their intersections within a society has completed its intellectual journey." Not only can a person not fully understand his situation without understanding history, but the history of a society cannot be fully understood without studying the biographies of the people who live during a certain time in history.
Mills wrote that, "The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relationship between the two within society." He goes on to explain that most people do not recognize the relationship between "the personal troubles of milieu" and "the public issues of social structure."
In this book, Mills uses unemployment as an example of how to link a personal trouble with a social issue. If a person in unemployed, then that is a personal trouble for them. But, if there are high unemployment rates where that person lives, then it can be understood that this is a public issue that needs to be addressed. Without this understanding, people can feel as though it is their fault, that they have done something wrong and fall into depression or worse. With the understanding of the sociological imagination, the person could have the option to join with other people in society to reason together and find solutions.
Writing in the era after World War II, Mills felt that there was an uneasiness felt by many people that wasn't really being defined or addressed. Not knowing what to do, some people tend to fall into indifference or apathy. Discussing labor and the workplace, he writes that people tend to feel as though there is nothing they can do about the way things are, so they adapt. There are some things that Mills agrees with Karl Marx on and one of those concepts is the feeling of alienation that a worker feels when they are working for an employer who does not take their needs into account.
He feels that this lack of control over one's own life leads to adapting to a habit of rationalizing rather than reasoning about work and other aspects of society. He makes the case that reason and freedom go hand in hand and that rationality without reason is the "destroyer" of freedom.
He writes, "Freedom is, first of all, the chance to formulate the available choices, to argue over them -- and then the opportunity to choose. That is why freedom cannot exist without an enlarged role of human reason in human affairs. Within an individual's biography and within a society's history, the social task of reason is to formulate choices, to enlarge the scope of human decision in the making of history."
My new book,
"The Worth of
Our Labor"
In 2012, presidential candidate, Mitt Romney was caught talking about 47% of Americans. He said that he didn't have to worry about 47% of Americans because they are dependent on the government. "They consider themselves victims, who believe that the government has a responsibility to help them." FAR FROM IT, MR. ROMNEY AND ALL WHO FEEL LIKE HE DOES... MOST OF US HAVE WORKED HARD ALL OF OUR LIVES AND JUST WANT OUR ELECTED LEADERS TO STOP MAKING LAWS THAT HELP THE RICH AND HURT THE POOR!!!
The Story of My Life (continued)
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In the spirit of the Me2 movement, I would like to suggest the Us2 movement to give low-wage workers the stage they need to bring attention to what it feels like to spend your life struggling to survive, only to be dismissed as someone who "just hasn't worked hard enough."
I have been reading about the contract workers who were affected by the "government shutdown" the last few weeks. They are paid low-wages and paid hourly when they work. But, these workers do not have benefits or any guarantee to be paid in the future for days missed. How can these workers take care of their families with no pay for a month? They have to scramble and find some other work, visit food banks, and worry, worry, worry. It is a stressful way to live anyway when you are paid minimum wage and have no sick days or health benefits. Then, add the experience of the shutdown.
Although I grew up in a somewhat modest middle-class home, my early earning years were disrupted by trauma. I have spent most of my life recovering from this trauma emotionally and financially. The recovery continues and I do wonder if this is just my "lot in life."
I have talked to many other people who do understand what it's like to struggle, and I want to use this website to reach out to those who want to talk about it. I want this to be a safe space for people to talk about what it feels like to work hard and still struggle. I want people to share their stories.
After getting a slow start, I was feeling like I was making headway in 2007. I had gone back to school and completed my bachelor's degree in sociology. I had a good job. I bought my first house. I had a great car. Nothing fancy, but decent. I had hope for my future.
But, the recession of 2008 hit. I lost my job, my car, and my house. I was thrown backwards into the depression I had worked so hard to get out of for so long.
My husband and I have never really recovered. We are surviving, but so many things still hurt. Struggling to buy the basics, feeling terrible because we can't do the things we would like to for our kids and grandkids. I know I get so tired of being the person who needs help. I want to be the person who is helping others. The hurt is real, but mostly stuffed down inside because it's too painful and embarassing to talk about.
If you or someone you know has struggled financially and would like to share your story, please
Some news reports state that as a country we have recovered from the 2008 recession. Personally, I have never been able to pull myself back up out of the hole. I know there are many others who were affected by this recession and I would love to hear your stories.
to share your story.
"That's just the way it is," and, "There's nothing we can do about it." Two phrases that we use every day when we don't know what to do. It's true. Our kids and pets don't have any responsibility to find the answers, but, as adults, we need to resist these common answers that don't provide solutions. We need to find ways to listen to each other and work together to make changes in our society that will help everyone.
Another "cop-out" phrase is, "This doesn't affect me," or "I don't see how this affects me." It's easy to close our eyes to another person's suffering. We distance ourselves and feel that this person much have done something wrong to deserve their plight. When I worked for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, I learned that most people don't change their behavior unless something happens to them or someone close to them. Otherwise, a car crash, or other disaster is just something that happens to other people.
For so many reasons, we need to be willing to put ourselves in another person's shoes. It is so easy to distance ourselves and professor, Bernice Lott, wrote about this in regards to how we knowingly and unknowingly distance ourselves from people who are poor.
I spent time in a wheelchair after my car crash and I experienced the way people look away from people in a wheelchair. I think part of us feels that if we look we may be contaminated. They might be contagious. Our mind may know it's not true, but in some weird, superstitious way, we feel that if we get too close, if we look them in the eye, we may meet the same fate.
I wonder why we distance ourselves from each other. I wonder if we are allowing fear to keep us from feeling compassion. No one wants to feel pain, and feeling pain for another person can hurt physically. It can take its toll. Most of us are just trying to get through our own day... and, our own pain.
But, there are times we do need to notice another person's pain. There are times we can see what needs to be done and we do it. And, we see it makes a difference. Help an old lady across the street. Do the right thing.
A famous Greek philosopher named Solon once said, "Justice can only be served when those who have not been affected by crime, become as indignant as those who have been."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. famously said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
I feel that now we are in a time where we need to really notice what our fellow human beings are going through. We need to go back to the idea, that when you hurt one of us, you hurt all of us. The call to "wake up" is used to get people's attention, but the truth is that many people have been awake for a long time. There are many people who have suffered silently, people who have struggled financially and many people who have lived without health care. They have fought battles for a long, long time. They have seen what is happening for a long time, but no one wanted to listen to what they had to say.
We now know that there is a small percentage of people in power who have crafted a society that routinely robs from the poor and gives to the rich and somehow finds a way to keep us all divided. They "play dumb," like the billionaire I just heard on the news who can't understand how federal workers who are out of work, are running out of food. Okay?!? I don't want to hear this guy speak! I want to hear from the workers who are running out of food, and I want to hear other Americans feeling compassionate for them and other people who are always struggling... literally... to put food on the table!
This website is for the people who have struggled and the people who want to have a voice about their struggles. We need to stop thinking there is nothing we can do and start talking about how we can change things. One of the first things we should do is realize that anyone can find themselves in financial trouble. (Well, almost anyone.) And, we should not allow the myth that, "if a person is poor, then it must be their fault." If this is true, then, "if a person is rich they must have done everything right." These two false ideas are seared into our brains and we don't even know it. "The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism," by Max Weber describes this concept and his theory about how it became ingrained into American culture. "If you're successful, you must be favored by God. If you're not, you are probably not going to make it to Heaven."
In the United States, we have just recently began to talk about economic class, but it has been there all along. Because of my "unique" life path, I have lived in poverty and seen many other people in the same boat. I have had the opportunity to see that most people in that situation did not deserve to be there. There are many things out of our control. The main control of the world's resources is not in the hands of the majority of the people. It is in the hands of the few.
We are waking up to this reality in many ways. We need to wake up in the sense that we are "our brother's keeper." We need to realize our power when we stand together.
And, Rev. Martin Neimoller wrote this well known poem to express the importance of all of us "sticking together" and standing up for each other.
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First they came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't a Communist.
Then, they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't a Jew.
Then, they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then, they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.
By Rev. Martin Niemoller
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And, the other phrase that comes to mind is the one attributed to John Bradford, a Protestant from the 16th century. "There, but for the grace of God, go I." People with ill intent who are willing to harm other people have gotten away with it for so long because they understand how to pit us one against another. We're all struggling in some way, and that coupled with the time it takes for almost all of us to just maintain our standard of living (whatever that means for each of us), keeps us feeling hopeless and at a loss to change anything.
Why do some of us feel so poor? Because we live in a society where the richest of the rich have control of the money and the law. They have created a society of systems that keeps everything locked in place, the status quo. The laws, the institutions, the organizations, they all work together to keep the money funneling to the top. And, the rest of us, just trying to survive, forget what it is that we have in common, and how much we really need each other.
What can we do? We can start by understanding. Read. Research. Talk to people you wouldn't ordinarily talk to about some of these things. Listen to people, especially older people. Tell your story. Write a book about your experiences. Create your own website! And, there are always the little basics... check in on somebody. Run an errand for someone. Just visit each other like we used to do in "the old days" and remember that we're all in this together.
The anonymous quote, "A rising tide raises all boats," has been attributed to different people and different situations, but in this case, my hope is that the 99% will realize how much they have in common. We have to stop letting the 1% make all the decisions. Our divisions are allowing them to continue helping themselves. The systems are the problems. Blaming each other only distracts us from looking at the real problems and delays us from finding solutions.
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"There's nothing we can do about it anyway."
Can YOU connect your biography with what is happening during your point in history?
Private Troubles
Private troubles are personal matters. They have to do with a person, his character and his close social settings. Most people don't link their personal troubles to the greater issues of the public and other people in general. Their troubles are a part of their own personal biography.
Reason and Freedom
In his book, "The Sociological Imagination," C. Wright Mills devotes an entire chapter to the important concepts of "reason" and "freedom." Sixty years ago when he wrote this, he was already feeling that these two important values were in "obvious yet subtle peril."
He explained that ordinary people are caught up in the everyday lives, working to pay the bills, taking care of the details of life, and they don't have time or inclination to reason about the systems and structures that define our culture. They follow the rules of the bureaucracies, tending to their tasks, He says that most people are so busy with the micro part of their lives that they cannot really define the issues that are the problem. The go along with the program doing the best they can. They adapt. They rationalize instead of reason.
Although, reason and rationalizing seem to be the same, Mills says that there is a contradiction between them. He refers to sociologist, Karl Mannheim who describes how individuals find themselves wrapped up in the "limited segments of great, rational organizations" and they eventually begin to "systematically regulate" their "impulses and aspiration, manner of life and manner of thought, in rather strict accordance with 'the rules and regulations of the organization.'"
Mills asks the readers to consider the possibility of the growth of these systems to the point where rationality does not include reason and instead of allowing freedom actually destroys it. He includes thoughts by another writer, Zygmunt Bauman who explains how "procedure rationality" and the "division of labor into smaller tasks" coupled with the tendency for the average person to be morally good and a rule-follower, was what fueled the holocaust. Bauman felt that these same processes could again lead to this type of emergency.
Mills was concerned that the average person would follow along and rationalize their reasons and actions by what they were being told. He worried that people would be more susceptible to corruption by the people with the power and resources to understand all of this. He worried that men would continue to abdicate their reasoning abilities and drift into becoming "cheerful robots." If they did, he warned that history will continue to be made by those in small elite circles who will make decisions that harm the average person, but with no requirement or responsibility to correct their decisions or help the people they have harmed.
When I think of the difference between reason and rationality, I think of a GPS system. It is a technological device that can be very helpful. It was developed by people working together and reasoning the best steps to take for creating it. The average user has no idea how it works. They just enter the address into the system and the voice gives the driver step by step directions to their destination. Many people who use GPS systems do not even know how to read a map. It is becoming a lost art. In this example, I would say that the user is rationally relying on the system that has been reasonably designed so that the person using it would not have to spend the time reasoning how to get where they are going. They can rely on the people who sold them the device instead. But, what if the GPS is wrong and sends you down a wrong road? Then, reasoning might come into play.
I also think of a poem I heard a long time ago about a little boy who started kindergarten. The first day of school his teacher told the class that she was going to have them draw a flower. The little boy quickly drew a flower on his paper. But, the teacher stopped him. "No," she said, "I would like everyone to draw the flower this way." And, she drew her version of a flower on the chalkboard. The little boy copied the flower and every day, the teacher gave them the assignment of drawing (or copying) another picture.
One day, the boy moved to a different school. In his new class, the teacher asked everyone to draw a picture of a flower. The little boy sat and waited patiently. The teacher asked him what he needed. He wasn't sure what to say. He didn't know how to start drawing without explicit instructions, and he didn't even know how to tell her what it was he didn't know what to do! His human desire to learn and think and reason had been channeled into a systematic way of copying to get the result the teacher wanted. The little boy's freedom to grow and develop and reason about life and everything it involves was usurped by teaching him to rationalize to please his teacher!
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There are some people who have understood the link between private troubles and public issues and they have usually been the novelists, artists, musicians, and poets.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "our greatest challenge is learning how not to be divided."
Blaming ourselves and others keeps us from critiquing society, further deflecting blame from the system.
Adaptation
Robert Merton was critical of capitalistic society. He said there are not enough opportunities for everyone to be successful and that people respond by adapting in different ways. He said that those in society who are successful have a tendency to push the belief that anyone can be successful. People who are not successful or are not able to adapt are penalized.
Are you a Cheerful Robot?
Do you hate your job? Do you feel anxious and uneasy when you think about it? What is alienation, and do you have it?
Where Biography Intersects with History
The reason freedom is necessary in a democracy is that reason is about finding facts, framing the issues and working together to make choices that will decide how history will be made. Mills thinks it is extremely important that the people, the common person, understands these dynamics because those who are making these decisions understand their own biographies and the history of the time they are living.
Mills tells us that the issues facing society (in his time period, but even more so now) need to be confronted and solved by looking at the situations through the lens of where we are in history. He explains that people are not doing this for many reasons. He feels that the average person's capacity for reasoning is being threatened because there are certain people who are benefiting from exploiting the common person. Certain people in society understand knowledge is power and do not want the average person to have this understanding.
People do sense something is wrong, though. He writes that, although most people sense a constant feeling of uneasiness and alienation, and, although they don't have the understanding, the time, and/or the desire to give the attention needed to the very real concern, they express this uneasiness as fear and anxiety. People regularly blame other people for the problems or blame themselves. Neither type of blame brings a solution.
The very real concern is that there are those with the power and resources who use the knowledge they have to keep people in a state of alienation and rationalization. There is no real freedom. There is no way to find solutions to the many situations troubling a society.
Most people look at their own personal troubles, as just that, their own personal troubles. They fail to see how so many other people are trapped in the same situations. People are divided over everything from race and religion, to political party, class and where they live. They continue to go about their lives as "cheerful robots" not realizing how much in common they have with those around them.
Mills was mostly concerned that without reason and freedom, democracy would be in serious trouble. He said, "The society in which this man, this cheerful robot, flourishes is the antithesis of the free society, or in the literal and plain meaning of the word, of a democratic society."
He felt that the only way people would succeed in making changes in the systems is by rejecting adaptive behaviors and not becoming cheerful robots. In today's world, it seems almost insurmountable to break out of the mold of the "cheerful robot" into a thinking, reasoning person. We want the freedom (and, actually, most of the time, think we have the freedom). We don't even realize we are cheerful robots until something pricks our conscience or affects us individually to bring us out of our stupor and make us aware.
One example in history that makes me think of this was when police were using dogs and fire hoses on black American citizens to get them to disperse from expressing their disapproval by protesting. People from all walks of life from around the country got on buses and airplanes to come and show their solidarity with the protesters and their indignation at the treatment these human beings were receiving. People reasoned that the only way everyone could have freedom was for those who were not affected to stand with those who were.
Somehow, government officials in Alabama had rationalized that it was okay to use dogs and fire hoses to attack people and it was easier for people to follow along by rationalizing the police had the right to do this. I would imagine that those people who went along with the horrifying behavior of their police chief would be feeling the uneasiness Mills wrote about. It may be easier in the moment to rationalize what is happening, but I think that most people would know deep down inside that if one group of people is being treated unjustly, the injustice could be doled out in their direction later on down the road.
And, if you've never heard about how human beings were attacked with dogs and fire hoses by order of the police chief in Birmingham, Alabama, please stop what you're doing now, and read it! All you have to do is google something like... "Birmingham" and "police dogs" and it will bring you to several news articles.
Do you have a story or know of a story you want to tell? Submit your story or research an idea (see my list of ideas to research below). Practice your writing either way. Stop holding back because of fear and stigma.
"I don't see how this affects me."
"The kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force." Matthew 11:12
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." Frederick Douglas
Why Vote?
Why vote? This is a "no-brainer" to me. I still get emotional every time I vote and I always think about the Americans who died fighting for our right to vote. Going to your local recreation center and voting on a computer may seem innocuous and not all that important, but the right to do that in itself is the heart of democracy.
Democracy is not guaranteed and I wonder if people from my generation and younger who have always lived in a democracy have become jaded and forget how important every single one of our votes are.
I know our voting system is not perfect, but this is how we will make changes. We will express ourselves by speaking, writing and telling our stories and we will educate ourselves about the people who are asking for the job to represent us.
The fight for the right to be included in these elections is still continuing. In Florida, voters approved an amendment to allow felons who have served their sentences to now register to vote. Over 1 million ex-felons voting will definitely make a difference in election outcomes. It is well documented that an overwhelming amount of people who are in prison are people who are poor and people who are black and Hispanic.
Some people still don't like the idea that "people of color" are now able to express themselves at the voting booth. But, that is their problem because the Constitution guarantees every citizen the right to vote. Another thing some people don't realize or remember is that 100 years ago today NOT ONE WOMAN in the United States of America was allowed to vote! Only 100 years ago! Can you even imagine what this country would be like if women were not allowed to vote? We should never take this for granted. One of the things I will be writing about is the few years before 1920. How long did the women fight? What kind of fight did they have? Who was fighting them? Were any men siding with the women? These are some of the things I will be researching and writing about. One book I will be using is, "Jailed for Freedom: The Story of the Militant American Suffragist Movement," by Doris Stevens. She was one of the women illegally jailed 100 years ago for participating in non-violent protests. We could spend the rest of our lives talking about the history and stories of people in this book!
The men did not give this right to women willingly. It was a lot worse than we thought. These are the kinds of biographies we need to know from the people who lived before us. This is part of what Professor Mills was talking about. In this way, we use the sociological imagination to look back in time to think about what effort and energy it actually took to secure by law the right of American women to vote.
Like every other little bit of power, it had to be taken by force. Not physical violence... the force of education, organization, non-violent direct action and persistence! The Bible acknowledges this kind of force. In Matthew 11:12, we read, "The kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force." Many women were held in prison illegally and some were force fed because they were fasting to get attention for the horrid conditions in the prison.
Frederick Douglas once said, "If there is not struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will."
There are many ways to change the world, but one of the most important is to vote, and to be engaged in the political process. A lot of people have suffered and died for this very precious right.