These past couple weeks have been weighing heavy on me. I’m not extremely sure where to begin, so I’ll start somewhere in the middle.*This is a slight continuation of my last blog post, so feel free to check it out. I reference it a bit here.* I was thinking about the positive results of western medicine, while taking into account the intense violence that Moran documents this institution committing by casting the patient as the lowest rung in its hierarchy. This is visible through events we saw in Meridian, like Meridian’s forced sterilization, and in my last blog post, the erasure of agency and the patient as a contributor to their health. Pondering the good and the not-so good made me think of a phrase we hear a lot in class-both and. When she says this, I believe Dr. McCoy challenges us to look at the (two) different sides of stories, people, and institutions.
On the Monday before the election, a friend asked me to go up to Susan B. Anthony’s grave. The tradition of putting your ‘I voted’ sticker on her grave seemed to come to full fruition this election season, with the well-intentioned, but incorrect sentiment of a first woman candidate for president. I told this friend that while I didn’t feel comfortable supporting Anthony, a white feminist who was ardently racist, I suggested that we visit Frederick Douglass’ grave, just yards away. This woman was adamant about visiting Susan B. Anthony’s grave, so our group decided to go to both Anthony and Frederick’s graves.
The line for Anthony’s grave when we arrived at 5 o’clock on Election Day was blocks long. I was frustrated that so many folks came out to support this woman who outwardly oppressed others. My friends and I stood behind a woman and her young (8 year-old?) daughter. The woman told us that she’d been live-streaming the feed from Anthony’s grave all day. Her daughter was aglow to see a champion of (white) women’s suffrage and babbled excitedly. The more I thought about it, I came to see their point of view (and return to one that was once my own): that Ms. Anthony did dedicate her life to the rights of a marginalized group, was persecuted, and is deserving of the recognition given to her. I couldn’t quite reconcile that pearly view of her life, however. I then thought of quantum physics.
Schrodinger’s thought experiment says that upon observation, the cat is forced into one state of being: dead or alive. I realized that my view of Anthony was perhaps the same. Did Susan B. Anthony fight for the rights of a marginalized group? Yes. Was her feminism decidedly not intersectional? Also, yes. Did this woman effectively risk her life for what she believed in? Yes. Did she, however, think that some lives, minds, and votes mattered more than others? Very much so. By not falling into the trap of observing Schrodinger’s cat, I was able to see Susan B. Anthony as equally all of those things. Observation, as Schrodinger comments, forces the observed to take one form.
Luckily enough, my friend decided that the wait was too long to see Anthony’s resting place. We were on a tight schedule so we ditched the long line. By then it was dark, and even with a cemetery map, it took our group of three a chunk of time to find Frederick Douglass’ grave (here are some pics. Thanks, Google). Frederick Douglass’ feminism was more intersectional that that of Susan B. Anthony. As I like to say, he wanted more people to vote that she did! Only a few ‘I voted’ stickers had found their way to his headstone and commemorative plaque, and two small offerings of leaves and coins adorned a tombstone flat on the ground. The both and of Frederick Douglass is a little easier to see. Douglass escaped slavery and lived in Rochester for much of his life as a free man.
My other friend that came with us is in Dr. McCoy’s Toni Morrison course, which she mentions in our class sometimes. She told me about a part in A Mercy where a woman sleeps with a man in order to have a tombstone for her child, whom she killed than rather commit to slavery (“Karintha,” anyone?). My friend was touched by the gravity of Mr. Douglass not having one, but two gravestones. What that may have meant to him and his children we can only guess, but to be born enslaved and die renowned as an advocate, thinker, and writer makes me ache with both empathy for his successes and for his struggle. As someone who saw this as the norm for interment, examining my privilege and thinking about how social structures still stratify folks in death was eye-opening. I reveled in the duality that was Douglass’ life, as an action-taking, respected intellectual, and a man who fled the country after his autobiography was published for fear he would be captured and returned to slavery. I remember leaning about Frederick Douglass in elementary school. He was talked about as an activist, but for fault of the ability of my young mind to comprehend and perhaps the way we were taught, Frederick Douglass was not too big of a deal. I didn’t quite understand nor appreciate fully the both and of his life until I did some self-study that let me see his life more wholly.
Contemplating the both and means that we have to push against the inclination to have a clear definition to problems, people, and ideas. It means we have to take in information from as many sources and viewpoints as possible to shape an idea that captures humanity and wholeness. Susan B. Anthony isn’t critiqued enough for her part in enacting white supremacy, and the absolute gravity of Frederick Douglass’ accomplishments aren’t given space to be appreciated. The engagement of the both and helps us to see their lives a little more holistically.