From 2010-2020, this decade has been the challenging of how the stigma can be. Someone once said: ‘The thing that I did that I am most proud of this decade? Survive.’ the other day.
W.E.B. DuBois on Abraham Lincoln: “I love him not because he was perfect, but because he was not, and yet triumphed.”
Learning how to navigate a history of bullying, slandering, character assassination, and hate dynamics in regards to a modern scarlet letter. Wellness, healing, equity, and the paramount factor is not so easily accepted: Strength.
Everything is the opposite. Cyberculture is the new norm of bullying. Technology has adapted faster even before blink eyes every time is something of concern we should be aware of in the future.
The wisdom that I appreciate most from books can be found in their writings on how we should how to survive. Landauer’s For Socialism, Day’s Gramsci is Dead: Anarchist Currents in the Newest Social Movements, and Holloway’s Change the World Without Taking Power: The Meaning of Revolution Today, Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Baird and Rosenbaum’s Hatred, Bigotry, and Prejudice, Lawrence’s Punishing Hate: Bias Crimes Under American Law, and many others.
Indeed, for many of the great writers, critical thinking is not always abstract, head-in-the-clouds, the kind of thing, but focus on how to survive in a hate-filled life. Professors whom I admire the most, they teach not just as something you do, but find the purpose of living. And I am grateful to know them.
Majoring in Sociology was the best decision rather than advanced math and signed up for those courses that impacted my life forever; Revolution and Radical Social Change, Hate Crimes and Bias, Methodology of the Oppressed, but not something like this, until the book surfaced: Understanding Deaf Culture: in Search of Deafhood by Paddy Ladd in 2010 had changed my life more than anything.
I wonder all the time, if I have not read Ladd’s book, I wouldn’t be here. Honestly, I wouldn’t be here. I am grateful for the book. It is one of many reasons: survive. Every day is filled with mystery and answers to make all the difference in the world.
Encouraging suicide by its Deaf community is something really tough to bear with, and I am thankful for Deaf-centered counseling. Rehabilitation is the key. The obstacles seem insurmountable, and the people I love and care the most had been supportive, though I am about as depressed as I’ve been and kept thinking that it is unbelievable for me to survive through.
Stigma sucks. I walk that road and I keep walking, no matter what how hard it is in the spite of cyberculture, and that makes all the difference, where an 18th-century British legal scholar, Sir William Blackstone: “It is but reasonable that among crimes of different natures those should be most severely punished, which are the most destructive of the public safety and happiness.”
Here comes 2020. I look forward to finishing my greatest project. As of 16th President of the United States of America, Abraham Lincoln: “Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.”
The thing that I did that I am most proud of this decade? Survive.
-JT
Copyright © 2020 Jason Tozier
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