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Mary Austin VOTED 4 HARRIS!

Nothing to see here, just an 18th century Pennsylvanian Quaker man born with dwarfism who ran away to sea in his youth, learned of the horrors of slavery, and became a radical abolitionist and eventually a cave dwelling, gender conscious vegetarian animal rights activist too. 🤯 This is why kids don't get into history; people like the "Quaker comet," as Benjamin Lay became known, get written out.

Dude would have been a hell of a follow on Mastodon.


getpocket.com/explore/item/the

PocketThe 18th-Century Quaker Dwarf Who Challenged Slavery, Meat-Eating, and RacismBenjamin Lay is not to be overlooked.

Looks like a lot of people feel like celebrating Lay's badassery today! Which is awesome, he deserves it, but I'm going to have to mute the thread and check replies periodically. I'm sure y'all understand.

@MaryAustinBooks
Sounds like a heck of a movie. But movies studios don't want a new story.

@MaryAustinBooks I’ve never heard of her m. Why is that?

@DebR
So many brave people were written out of history for not being able bodied white Christian men. Here's another I didn't learn about in school.

amightygirl.com/blog?p=24115

@MaryAustinBooks THANK YOU! Now that I no longer watch any news on TV I have some more reading material!

@katrinakatrinka @MaryAustinBooks Awesome! I listen to podcasts all day in my bead room!

@MaryAustinBooks
So true, if you don't conform, you're erased unless that non-conforming brings great power and wealth.
The 'mighty girl' too ❤

@DebR

@MaryAustinBooks

"On another occasion, he kidnapped the child of slaveholders temporarily, to show them how Africans felt when their relatives were sold overseas."

!!

@RhinosWorryMe Right??! This guy is just blowing me away this morning. I mean, all of us are wondering WTF we're going to do about a second Trump term. This guy lived during slavery, which is fascism that doesn't affect white people yet. Given that he had serious disabilities in the 18th century, he had the most right of anyone in his community to say "But what can I do in the face of all this injustice? Who would even listen to me?" And he not only spoke out but went full steam ahead. 🤯

@RhinosWorryMe This is why I follow accounts like Carve Her Name or Shine My Crown. Even whitewashed history contains stories of great bravery, but when you dig into the kind of heroism you get from people with disabilities, women, people born into slavery, it's even more staggering for what they overcame. And the fact that many of these heroes were considered "deranged" like Benjamin Lay reminds us not to rely on the approval of others for our moral compass.

@MaryAustinBooks

I always found the Quakers interesting. They need more talking about beyond "They exist". They had a LOT to offer the country in terms of viewpoints and social norms (and changes).

@CaffeinatedBookDragon @MaryAustinBooks note that Benjamin Lay was not well-liked by Quakers in his lifetime. He was expelled from several meetings. Quakers were among the first abolitionist groups in America, but they didn't start out that way. Plenty of Quakers participated in the slave trade.

@MaryAustinBooks What a badass! All Slave Keepers: Apostates! has been added to my reading list.

@MaryAustinBooks of all the Christian sects the Quakers are one of the few I have time for. They actually read that book....

@Lazarou
It says a lot that they don't have priests. Everybody is responsible for learning the source material together!

@MaryAustinBooks they're not fond of hierarchies too, I can roll with that.

@kinsale42 @Lazarou @MaryAustinBooks I feel you. No criticism, no blame. When you calm down a bit you can articulate a little better what's got under your skin. I have from time to time wondered about the seemingly infinite forks with what, to my eye, was negligible substantive difference.

And still "sudo aptitude" is one of my favorite video games.

@MaryAustinBooks

“Dude would have been a hell of a follow on Mastodon.”
I know some people here who speak with the same kind of uncompromising directness as Benjamin Lay, and they’re always being banned or silenced by the civility police.

@MaryAustinBooks @shansterable there really should be a tv series or film series about abolitionists. So many led incredible lives.

One of the best books I’ve read this year is “The United States Governed By Six Hindred Thousand Despots” which was written by John Swanson Jacobs a fugative slave abolitionist, gold miner and sailor who published it in Australia in 1855 in a newspaper. Where it was then largely forgotten. It was published this year with a full biography of his family.

@MaryAustinBooks "Despite his ultra-radical leanings"

Was he ultra-radical though, or was he normal living in an ultra-radical society? (I don't mean he wasn't extraordinary or exceptional, clearly he was an incredibly courageous luminary). Been thinking about this a lot lately (haven't we all??) As people lurch along with the Overton Window to the far right they gaze back at us, with our firmer convictions, and see us as strange, as the outliers, as the radicals, when in fact we haven't budged

@MaryAustinBooks from where they were (or pretended to be) only a few short years prior.

@freequaybuoy Right?? All his positions are mainstream today!

And yes, I hear you about the Overton window in our era. I grew up in a conservative bastion where I was considered left of Lenin for wanting fewer bodies in the streets. I was quite centrist and focused on what could get done. My east coast friends considered me center-right; my southern friends mostly considered me center-left. People who later became Trumpers thought I was far left.

Now I'm a liberal for wanting elections. 😬

@MaryAustinBooks my 90 year old dad read this a few years ago and told me all about it and then I read it too. Great book. @lydiaschoch

@MaryAustinBooks

he lived to see the Quaker position on slavery shift in the two yearly meetings he was involved with.