NO BUSINESS DESPAIRING!

“Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery.”
Frederick Douglass said this. It is in his address telling a white American audience what a sham the Fourth was to the slaves. On this day, it strikes me with considerable force that he did not despair. Two years before, William Lloyd Garrison had despaired and had shrieked, “Up with the flag of disunion!!” Seven years later, John Brown also despaired of nonviolent ways to end slavery and organized, planned and executed the abortive raid on the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry for which he, in turn, was executed.
I must confess that, much of yesterday (July 4) I was keeping company more with William and John rather than Frederick. In the wake of the latest decision by which the Taney Court 2.0 basically said ‘STIFLE YOURSELVES’ to the people they don’t really want to see voting as they actually allowed dark money to stay that way, I was in something of a funk. Me. A straight pale male, Anglo-Saxon no less, with an unimpeachably English family name, albeit with no real money, in despair over my country’s lurching retreat from the things which really do ‘make it great’ to whatever extent it may be considered so.
Then again, that’s also what Garrison and Brown were. They both despaired. Douglass, who had been an actual victim of the unconscionable slave system, did not despair. Let’s all chew on this for a few seconds, shall we?
I don’t know what made Garrison…