![]() ![]() Although popular choice elects them, the power is still in the hands of a few. However, the representatives are the ones making the decisions, rather than the people. If we look around us today, we can see how the majority of states have fulfilled this vision of Rousseau. The Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau theorizes a series of concepts about democracy and the authority of the state which represents the will of the people. In 1762, Rousseau wrote a political piece that set the foundation of modern Western nations. 1-Sentence-Summary: The Social Contract is a political piece of writing that serves as a pylon for the democracies of today, as it theorizes the elements of a free state where people agree to coexist with each other under the rules of a common body that represents the general will. ![]()
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![]() Ouma sat at the head of the table, in the place she’d occupied ever since her husband had died a couple of years ago. ![]() A chill was coming up from the slate floor, like the presence of the house added to our own. ![]() There were burn marks and scratches and stains in the wood, a whole history of damage. We ate in silence, our iron spoons dashing the plates, and I kept my gaze fixed downwards, on the surface of the table in front of me. We sat in the dining room, my grandmother, mother, myself. ![]() It gave me a small shock when I turned to see my mother watching me from the doorway, her arms folded across her chest. Then I sat on the bed, staring out the window, to where the last of the sunlight was fading. I sorted and stashed my clothes into drawers and pushed them carefully closed. But for some reason the orderly routine, as well as the friction of fingers on cloth, was comforting to me. I unpacked my clothes, though it wasn’t necessary to do so: we were leaving again the next day. I had always slept here, since I was a small boy, in the days and days I’d stayed on this farm, when my mother still loved my father. I was given the room in the attic, where the roof sloped down. They embraced cautiously, with tender hostility, in the wash of light from the car. ![]() It was two years since I’d last been here. Diminutive, dour, she was wearing the same soiled apron I remembered from every previous visit. The headlights picked out the house, the garage, the silent, patient figure in front. ![]() ![]() ![]() Kelly Navies, museum specialist and oral historian: “Throughout the war, Texas remained largely free of the presence of Union troops. ~ Kelly Navies, museum specialist and oral historian So, this year at Juneteenth, as you take a long swallow from a cool drink of hibiscus iced tea, or red punch, remember the ancestors who sacrificed, remember the blood shed in the struggle, remember the collective strength of people of the African diaspora, and finally remember the spirituality and transcendent joy that enabled us to overcome. Furthermore, culinary historians, trace the color to certain foods that traveled to the Americas along with the Africans during the trans-Atlantic slave trade, such as hibiscus and the kola nut. Folks bring these items without much thinking about their origin. In fact, the roots of the symbolic efficacy of the color red can be traced to West Africa, where it has been associated with strength, spirituality, life, and death. Each year when my family celebrates Juneteenth, our flyers boldly request that each quest bring something "Red." We then add examples, like red soda pop, watermelon, apples, or even red beans. ![]() |