Why in 2018, I still have to belong to 'him' to be who I am? Still 'his'
Contributed By:Dorothy Nevils maslivend@sbcglobal.net
Hold the "Wo-"
We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…
We know these words by heart: We heard them read to us, we learned them “by heart,” we said them together; and we believed in our young, gullible bosoms that they were true! In fact, that belief helped some of us secure a place on the honor roll! We had no idea that, as the old folks said, it was a “sham,” a dressed up, processed, dirty, rotten, lie, taught to us in the colored school as diligently as it was a distance away. Teaching those “rights” was a requirement.
We are now in the twenty-first century, and we’re still, to be honest, not quite sure about those “unalienable” rights. If you pay attention to words – not just in passing, the way some of my students tried, just getting to an unfamiliar word and saying, “big word”; or throwing some unheard of concoction of sounds at it, and moving to the next word, only to be yanked back to give it the respectability any innocent word deserves for being put in front of lazy eyes that rolled skyward when the teacher taught about “breaking it down into syllables” and “word parts and meanings” – you’ll recognize the sweet-smelling lies that many of those words have hauled around for years, unchallenged because many of us, like babies, just swallowed without chewing.
Unalienable is a “sealed” promise, incapable of being torn away – in short, permanent: No one can take away your God-given rights. Now, look again at the third word after the colon. That’s where the “seal” is broken. That’s where the difference is. That’s where one part of the population gets excluded – and then is excluded from that point on!
I know. You’ll tell me that “men” means all humankind, that women are included… just not by designation…
And that’s where I ask, “And why is that? Why aren’t women given the same space as men?” Why must we be “added on” like a lesser one?”
This weekend I was attempting to reset my password for my bank account and, if you know the drill, the “phone folks” ask a series of questions to ascertain your legitimacy, things you would know right off the bat if you were indeed who you claimed.
I was asked about five questions I should know, two of which were about a husband I divorced almost fifty years ago, including his current address! His is not an address, especially the numbers, I hold in my memory. So, I could not prove I was who I am!
She explained what I’ve known for years: They use info from financial activity, etc. Well, my exploding head recalled as I hung up the phone, “I have bought every car I’ve owned – too many, bought my house, paid my taxes (filing single), all my furniture, insurance… I could go on… and on... and on… Yet I needed to be able to prove that I am “she,” – his “she,” I might add – by having answers that matched “he!”
This nonsense continually stands in my path. I attempted to send money to one of my cousins to go to help our cousin’s daughter with her mother (Doris) who was deathly ill. It took an hour to get cleared to send my money to help our cousin (Jean) help our cousin (Doris) while she was dying! Why? I didn’t know the name of my ex-husband’s granddaughter!
This is utter nonsense! Perhaps one day women will be able to be women in our own right, to have and manage our own affairs…
It’ll happen… if enough of those “endowed with unalienable power” …grant us permission.
Story Posted:08/20/2018
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