Our extra credit assignment for this week is to read and comment on this very speech. The essay prompt is, Do you feel Douglass speech is patriotic? Why or why not? Hell, yes, its patriotic. Its our goddamned duty to get out there and raise some hell. And now Im going to put on clean underwear and go to Oakland with my Sisters and Brothers and exercise my First Amendment rights. At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could reach the nations ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced. --Frederick Douglass (1852)
Posted on: Fri, 04 Jul 2014 21:50:25 +0000
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