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Sterling Craig

Ajay Gehlawat

LIBS 101: The Human Enigma

4 December 2020

Human Enigma Essay

Overcoming Ignorance in Human Enigma

No one can dispute that it is nearly impossible to find your way through the dark without

a flashlight or a guiding hand. If you have a flashlight and choose not to lend it to these people in

need, you are a bystander. In my opinion, bystanders are worse than those who are ignorant, as

they actively choose to do nothing when they could be creating real change. Beginning the

semester with Plato’s “the Allegory of the Cave,” we learned that being dragged out of lies so

embedded within you can be painful, yet it is the only way of living a fulfilled life. In this day

and age, differentiating real from fake can be extremely difficult, and it is apathy that keeps

people from discovery. In Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen, this apathy is expressed

through the writers, distributors, and educational systems that allow false information and

American bias in textbooks, twisting history to make the U.S. look good instead of admitting our

mistakes and looking forward to see what changes can be made to avoid such circumstances.

However, change simply cannot be made without accepting wrongdoing.

A great example of what should be done to end this pandemic of ignorance is to follow in

the footsteps of Assata Shakur in Assata: an autobiography. Fighting against racism through

protest and poetry, spreading the word through her writing and activism within the Black Panther

Party and other organizations. Assata acted as many people’s guiding light, including everyone

who has read her books and/or poetry, even from prison. Telling the truth, no matter how
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gruesome or uncomfortable, is not only important but necessary to the improvement of

humanity. Redeployment by Phil Klay, uses a collection of hard-to-hear war stories touching on

the objectification of women and realities of combat that don’t feel so “heroic” as America

depicts in movies and commercials to promote it, debunking false realities and helping to

communicate what is true. All of these lovely writers are examples of upstanders, those who

have found their way out of the dark and choose to help guide others.

Reading “the Allegory of the Cave” and Lies My Teacher Told Me, reminded me a lot of

a seminar I took my senior year called “the politics of spectacle” in which we read all of the best

novels including 1984, Brave New World, Fight Club, etc. Almost all of these stories begin with

the erasure or blurring of history and the terrifying part is we’re living it! “Handicapped by

History,” an important chapter in Loewen’s book speaking on the false heroism of racist

Woodrow Wilson, states that “this cover up denies all students the chance to learn something

important about the interrelationship between the leader and the led. White Americans engaged

in a new burst of racial violence during and immediately after Wilson’s presidency” (21). This

quote in particular really stood out to me as it opened my eyes to something, I knew but hadn’t

quite recognized yet. This follow-the-leader mentality is what constantly puts the U.S. in a sort

of flip-flop situation, leaving ignorant and/or apathetic people to sway along with whoever is in

power without thinking about what is actually happening and how they truly feel about it. I know

this because I actively was that person up until about a couple years ago, and it has taken many

helping hands and flashlights in order for me to leap out of that. Taking this class has helped me

even more to snap out of my past ignorance, better said in “the Allegory of the Cave,” “to look

upon the sun itself and see its true nature, not by reflections in water or phantasms of it in an

alien setting, but in and by itself in its own place” (Plato 748). Reflections, although they look
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and seem real, are never the original image, you must experience the real setting first-hand in

order to truly understand it; the problem is that reflections, or distortions of the truth, are much

easier to come by. This way of knowing, seeing, and being, is what makes combatting ignorance

and apathy possible.

Assata Shakur embodied this way of being, using the passion and anger in her heart to

create justice for those being discriminated against. Similarly, Klay participates in this activism

by sharing his collection of eye-opening stories meant to educate his readers on the ugly truths of

war, often avoided by the media. A poem from Shakur’s autobiography that has continued to

resonate with me is “Leftovers---What is Left” (146-147). The power in her words and repetition

of “what is left?” at the end of every stanza makes me question reality as she does and urges me

and her other readers that questioning is a step in the right direction. The last stanza of her poem

reads “Love is my sword and truth is my compass. What is left?” (Shakur 147). These words

have encouraged me to keep striding towards upstander rather than bystander, and to continue

hunting down the truth, it is worth the effort to combat ignorance. From reading Assata’s works,

I have learned that actions always speak louder than words, but words can also constitute as

actions if you use them correctly.

In Redeployment, Klay shares a chapter titled “In Vietnam They Had Whores,” just the

name itself is a red flag for me and the chapter itself was difficult to read, but if I hadn’t, I

wouldn’t have known how foreign women are so heavily objectified by American soldiers.

Throughout the entire chapter women are only referred to as “whores,” and the chapter opens

with a man’s father and his experiences in Vietnam at strip clubs where women would see how

many quarters they could pick up with their genitalia. His son listened as he tells the story, “he

takes out his lighter and holds the flame on those quarters till there branding iron hot” (120).
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Continuing to say it smelt like “sizzling steak,” physically harming these women with no

consequences and further treating them like they are meaningless and disposable. I had no idea

women were treated this way in Vietnam, and after reading this chapter I did some research and

not only on Vietnam but also just women in general and women in the army as well. Sexual

assault and harassment are so prevalent even today for women in the army and male soldiers

continue to get away with it, so women are too afraid to speak up. Now that I know this

information, I feel educated enough to share it and these women’s experiences to hopefully make

a difference by spreading awareness, something I never could have done before this class as I

simply wouldn’t have known.

Taking this class has allowed to be deeper explore what it means to be ignorant and how

to overcome it while helping others along the same path. I’ve taken this opportunity to look into

political issues now and apply what I have learned to my everyday life, starting conversations at

the dinner table or with friends, using social media to spread awareness, writing poetry, and

reading lots of statistics and information to stay up to date on what is going on in the present.

This has helped me to stop making assumptions and argue more effectively so I can attempt to

sway other people’s opinions and make a difference. Someday, I really hope to be someone’s

flashlight, and I think this class has sent me in the right direction to do so. Assata Shakur,

specifically, has inspired me to do better and continue to grow as a person and a writer. Her

poetry truly struck something in me that made me start writing again, I could feel her passion and

pain in every word, and I hope to one day achieve that power.
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Works Cited

Klay, Phil. Redeployment. New York City, NY: Penguin Books, 2015.

Loewen, James. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything American History Textbooks Get Wrong.

New York City, NY: Touchstone, 2007.

Shakur, Assata. Assata: An Autobiography. Chicago, IL: Lawrence Hill Books, 2001.

Socrates, Hamilton, E., & Cairns, H. The Allegory of the Cave. In Plato: Collected Dialogues

(pp. 747-752). Translated by Plato. Random House, 1963.