This show is the epitome of “I’m an asshole because I’m better than you” and so many people used it to justify their behavior, and it finally addressed the fact that that’s not the case but instead the reality is “I’m an asshole because I’m immature and can’t take care of myself mentally or emotionally” and of course assholes are gonna cry about it. Because, again, they are immature and can’t handle their emotions.
This monologue is a prime example of “Sometimes if someone’s advice pisses you off it’s because they’re right and you know that applies to you.”
To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee
Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.
I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks call her Mrs. Anderson,—and the children—Milly, Jane, and Grundy—go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, “Them colored people were slaves” down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.
As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor’s visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams’s Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.
In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve—and die, if it come to that—than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.
Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.
From your old servant,
Jourdon Anderson.
I googled him to see how this story turned out and
Now what would happen if a homeless quilt was made by someone who actually cared about homeless people?
Meet former ad designer Willie Baronet.
Baronet is an artist who talks to homeless people and buys their signs from them for $20 a pop, if they’re willing to sell. He uses the signs in art exhibits to educate the privileged and point them to ways they can help, and to humanize homeless people and tell them they matter.
One sign at a time, Baronet makes a statement to help people with $20 in their hand and a voice that rings across the nation saying “I’m here.”
So not only did they take the small, hand-made signs away from homeless people but instead of just tossing them, they kept them. Not only did they keep them as some kind of homeless trophy, they actually went through the time, energy, and effort (funded by tax dollars) to tape them together, pose for a picture, and post it during the holiday season.
This is why people say that there are no good cops. Because there aren’t.
I love that when the stock market falls nobody has any idea what is happening and everybody just starts making shit up. Like if you ever study labor history you know that there is literally no way to tell what is going to happen because so-called “experts” say the exact same things every time. The fundamentals are still good, or it is just a small correction, or whatever. People said that in 1929 and 2008 too. Like it might totally just be a minor blip - or it might be a major recession. Nobody knows, but everybody likes to give you their expert hot take on it.
Let’s end capitalism guys. Our lives shouldn’t depend on the gambling and greed of the super rich.
“Everyone starts making shit up” is honestly so much of economics and I’m completely serious. That’s the problem, people forget it’s a social science and not a natural science, so they treat all changes in the market as a normal cycle rather than something more.
Heard some important information on Twitter today, and thought I’d post it here for anyone who may not have heard it. This is actually a thing, devised by human rights organisation called Karma Nirvana.