The Age of Enlightenment I’ve been reading a book by Ibrahim X. Kendi. The title of the book is Stamped From the Beginning . It is a tough read. The premise of the book is a complete history of racism in recorded history. It is both fascinating and gut-wrenching to understand how we got to where we are concerning race in America and the world today. One of the sections is on The Enlightenment. Oh, the good old days of science and reason. Society started to take a step back from God and did everything to understand that maggots come from flies...not rotten meat. During the 17th and 18th century Europeans started to think outside the Roman Catholic church. Many people began to discover that the world could be explained with reason and thought, and we did not need the Church to explain to us about life and death. Ideas like freedom of speech, liberty of the individual, and separation of Church and State began to unfold. Science thrived and new discoverie
Life is hard as a fat man. He knew this all too well. Movement was not easy because joints hurt after years of supporting such a large frame. Breathing is labored. Finding clothing is like a quest for the Holy Grail, and once a fat person finds something that resembles a stylish garment, it is treasured. For most of his life, he hated his body. It was round and clumsy. He did not look in the mirror often, and he tried his hardest to never look at himself naked. He was repulsed by the sight of it. He felt awkward most of the time. The man was always the largest person in a crowd, and he heard the laughs and whispers. What people didn’t know was that they weren’t even close to saying anything as harmful as he said to himself. There were times when the man wanted to simply disappear. It was impossible for him to not be noticed, so as a defense he acted like the world’s biggest extrovert. He thought if he made people laugh, they would accept him as kind of normal. It worked most of the ti