The Opressed Speak Out

Written by Sara Jane Luley

It seems like just about everyone these days is getting their own appreciation month or their own advocacy group. Dammit, I want one, too! You might think that because I'm white and middle class and a college student that I've got it good. But I'm telling you that you only think that because our oppressive society and the media told you to think that.

The truth is, I was born left-handed. Society tries to tell to that this is not normal, that we're somehow "freaks." At last a member of this shunned group has found the courage to speak out. We may have progressed somewhat from the pre-1950s days when teachers would force children to become like "normal kids" and hold their pencils in the right hand, contrary to all of their natural instincts. My grandmother has often spoken of these heartbreaking times to me. However, our quest is not finished.

We still live in a world such that when lefties try to write on the chalkboard they smear all of the chalk off and then people keep making all of these ergonomically designed potato peelers and other small useless appliances that I don't actually use which only work with the right hand. Have you ever noticed that in a classroom if you want to sit at one of the two lefty desks in the room you are relegated to the back corner where you will not interfere so much with the perfect feng shui?

Am I the only person disturbed by the statistic that lefties die 10 years earlier on average than righties? We need an advocate, someone to give us equal rights in other careers besides professional baseball. I was thinking Jesse Jackson, seeing as he's had nothing to do since the sixties, and he's frankly getting a little too rambunctious for anyone to listen to him anymore. Henceforth, I declare January 22nd as National Love Your Left Hand Day.