I LIke To Think of Harriet Tubman

Two headlines in separate newspapers this morning juxtapose the political contradictions of our times.  In the New York Times, the headline announces “House Republican Pass Deep Cuts in Food Stamps.”  And in the Daily Tar Heel, the campus newspaper at the University of North Carolina, the front page leads with “Food Stamp Need Triples in County.”

The college paper reports on Sonya Dixon (a.ka. “Cookie”), who prepares and serves meals at a childcare center but whose own daughter has cerebral palsy, which means she can only work part time.  With limited earnings, she depends on food stamps to put meals on the table.  Sonya is African American and is one of 6, 357 others in Orange County who receive food stamps.  The unemployment among blacks in North Carolina is over 17%.  

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says the Republican backed measure in Washington would cut about four million recipients like Cookie from the rolls of those who receive help feeding their families.  Congressman Marlin Stutzman (R-Indiana) promises, “This bill eliminates loopholes, ensures work requirements, and puts us on a fiscally responsible path.”  Has the Congressman asked Sonya Dixon how she’s going to feed her disabled daughter? 

Here’s a poem by Susan Griffin titled “I like to think of Harriet Tubman,” which I dedicate to Mr. Stutzman and his colleagues in the House.

I like to think of Harriet Tubman.

Harriet Tubman who carried a revolver,

who had a scar on her head from a rock thrown

by a slave-master (because she

talked back) , and who

had a ransom on her head

of thousands of dollars and who

was never caught, and who

had no use for the law

who defied the law. I like

to think of her.

I like to think of her especially

when I think of the problem

of feeding children.

The legal answer

to the problem of feeding children

is ten free lunches every month,

being equal, in the child's real life,

to eating lunch every other day.

Monday but not Tuesday.

I like to think of the President

eating lunch on Monday, but not

Tuesday.

and when I think of the President

and the law, and the problem of

feeding children, I like to

think of Harriet Tubman

and her revolver.

And then sometimes

I think of the President

and other men,

men who practice the law,

who revere the law,

who make the law,

who enforce the law

who live behind

and operate through

and feed themselves

at the expense of

starving children

because of the law.

men who sit in paneled offices

and think about vacations

and tell women

whose care it is

to feed children

not to be hysterical

not to be hysterical as in the word

hysterikos, the greek for

womb suffering,

not to suffer in their

wombs,

not to care,

not to bother the men

because they want to think

of other things

and do not want

to take women seriously.

I want them to think about Harriet Tubman,

and remember,

remember she was beaten by a white man

and she lived

and she lived to redress her grievances,

and she lived in swamps

and wore the clothes of a man

bringing hundreds of fugitives from

slavery, and was never caught,

and led an army,

and won a battle,

and defied the laws

because the laws were wrong, I want men

to take us seriously.

I am tired wanting them to think

about right and wrong.

I want them to fear.

I want them to feel fear now I want them

to know

that there is always a time

there is always a time to make right

what is wrong,

there is always a time

for retribution

and that time

is beginning.