tbh i am disgusted that ariana grande had to actually disable her comments on twitter because so many people are blaming her for mac millers death from an overdose. like yes his death is immensely tragic and alcohol and drugs are a huge issue in society today but ariana was in no way obligated to stay with someone who was toxic for her health and well-being. and the people who are saying that it was her job to stay and “take care of him” and “save him” can fucking rot
I just thought about this today and dug through my pictures to find it: a letter from a black soldier in the Civil War to the person who owns his daughter. “The longer you keep my child from me the longer you will have to burn in Hell and the quicker you will get there.“
photo text (with corrected spelling and broken into sentences, paragraphs):
Letter from a Black Soldier to the Owner of His Daughter
Spotswood Ric, a former slave, writes to Kittey Diggs, 1864:
I received a letter from Cariline telling me that you say I tried to steal, to plunder, my child away from you. Not I want you to understand that Mary is my Child and she is a God given rite of my own.
And you may hold on to her as long as you can. But I want you to remember this one thing, that the longer you keep my Child from me the longer you will have to burn in hell and the quicker you’ll get there.
For we are now making up about one thousand black troops to come up thorough, and want to come through, Glasgow. And when we come woe be to Copperhood rebels and to the Slaveholding rebels. For we don’t expect to leave them there. Root nor branch. But we think however that we (that have children in the hands of you devils), we will try your the day that we enter Glasgow.
I want you to understand Kittey Diggs that where ever you and I meet we are enemies to each other. I offered once to pay you forty dollars for my own Child but I am glad now that you did not accept it. Just hold on now as long as you can and the worse it will be for you.
You never in you life before I came down hear did you give children anything, not anything whatever, not even a dollars worth of expenses. Now you call my children your property. Not so with me.
My children is my own and I expect to get them. And when I get ready to come after Mary I will have both a power and authority to bring her away and to exact vengeances on them that holds my Child.
You will then know how to talk to me. I will assure that. And you will know how to talk right too. I want you now to just hold on; to hear if you want to. If your conscience tells that’s the road, go that road and what it will bring you to Kittey Diggs.
I have no fears about getting Mary out of your hands. This whole Government gives cheer to me and you cannot help yourself.
Source: Ira Berlin, ed. Freedom, A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861-1867. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1982, 690.
I wanted to find out what happened (DID HE GET HIS DAUGHTER BACK?) and the answer is that not only was he reunited with his family, but went on to be a successful minister and his daughter was interviewed in the 30s for the Slave Narratives Project.
I finished reading Joanna Russ’s How to Suppress Women’s Writing recently, in which she quotes from Ellen Moers’ Literary Women, and it feels delightful to discover so many connections between women writers – Emily Dickinson knew Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh by heart and named her as a mentor, Helen Hunt Jackson encouraged Dickinson to publish her poetry, Amy Lowell and Adrienne Rich later referred to Dickinson as their foremother, Elizabeth Barrett Browning was friends with Mary Russell Mitford and both admired and visited George Sand, Willa Cather called Sand’s novels masterly, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and George Eliot were pen pals with Harriet Beecher Stowe, George Eliot wrote to Elizabeth Gaskell to say that ‘Cranford’ was an inspiration to her and she re-read Jane Austen’s novels while writing her own, Austen loved Maria Edgeworth’s novels, Nathalie Sarraute admired Ivy Compton-Burnett as one of England’s greatest novelists, etc. etc.
As Russ points out, when reading literary anthologies put together by men and citing maybe half a dozen lone female writers sprinkled over several centuries amidst a sea of male names, you get the impression that women writers were very isolated figures in their time, that their literary ambition and talent was an anomaly completely unrelated to any appreciation of other women writers and wish to emulate them, and it’s so nice to get a reminder that they actually had female mentors and fangirls and friendships with other women writers and they read and studied and admired one another.
Holy shit. Holy fuck. I got my little sister the book “sex is a funny word” because she’s at that age where she’s reading a lot of puberty books and I’d heard that this one was lgbtq+ friendly, but I was checking it over for accuracy and I gotta say, even with the totally gender neutral language they were using to talk about body parts and the really respectful way they talk about gender and their portrayals of same sex couples I was so fucking sure that I would have to mention that not everyone gets crushes or feels attraction separately. Because these books never talk about that. But here it is. The one thing I was so absolutely sure wouldn’t be included.
I honest to god dropped the book when I saw this I was so shocked. And I’m so fucking happy right now. I can’t exspress how much I wish this was mentioned in the books I read when I was a kid. It would have saved me so much confusion, and I’m so happy that kids today are gonna read this and know that it’s okay and normal to not get curses. I’m so so fucking happy you have no idea.
Steel Phoenix Studios 