Frederick Douglass Is “Somebody Who’s Done an Amazing Job.”

Last updated on: February 27, 2017 at 12:06 pm by Paul Louis Metzger

Frederick Douglass Is “Somebody Who’s Done an Amazing Job.” 2017-02-27T12:06:01-08:00 Paul Louis Metzger

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Frederick Dougalss, circa 1860’s, Creative Commons

President Trump remarked during a Black History Month gathering that “Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more, I notice” (Refer here).

This statement caused an Internet sensation: did the President even know who Frederick Douglass was—he made it sound as if he were still alive.

Still, there is a sense in which President Trump was right: Mr. Douglass seems to have received greater attention with the passing of the years.

One of the most striking qualities of Frederick Douglass was that he was a self-taught man: apart from the initial instruction he received from his slave owner’s wife, he basically taught himself as a slave to read and write. This was no easy accomplishment given how dangerous slaves who could read and write were perceived to be.

In his autobiography, Douglass recounts how his slave owner exhorted his wife to stop teaching Douglass. Here is what Douglass writes in retelling the account:

If you teach that n— … how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy (Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave {New York: Signet Classics, 2005}, page 48).

These words lit a fire in Douglass’s soul that nothing would ever quench. He realized that literacy was the pathway to freedom. Beyond winning freedom from slavery, Douglass became a renowned orator, a leading abolitionist, a U. S. Minister to Haiti, and a Vice-Presidential candidate (Refer here to a biographical account of Douglass).

Douglass did not squander his opportunities to learn to read and write. In fact, he created opportunities in the face of many obstacles. As I read his autobiography, I reflected upon the number of opportunities I (and others of us) have squandered rather than educating ourselves.

One of the areas where we should be very careful not to squander opportunities to educate ourselves concerns President Trump’s war with the media (Refer here, here, here, and here).

My hope is that Mr. Douglass’s growing influence, to allude to the President’s remarks on Douglass noted earlier, will surface here as well. Rather than get sucked into derogatory remarks and accusations without substantiation that the press is or is not fair, we need to pursue facts: read widely, speak and write cogently with sustained arguments, just like Mr. Douglass.

Going forward, it is not accurate to frame the war with the press as one between the media and President Trump plus Steve Bannon. After all, the President and Mr. Bannon are themselves media giants. Just look at Mr. Trump’s social media following, and Bannon’s lead role in alt-right media over the years. If anything, they represent anti-mainstream media at war with mainstream media (Refer here).

So, we need to ask which, if any media outlets, we are going to believe on a given day. We need to ask and answer the question of believability by making every effort to read widely. We also need to provide reasons why we agree or disagree with particular mainstream media outlets or particular alt-media outlets on this or that subject on this or that day in pursuit of truth.

Frederick Douglass’s undying passion and pursuit of literacy freed him from the chains of ideological and physical slavery. If we allow his example to inspire us, we will increase our opportunities to become more literate and will free ourselves from ideological slavery from whatever corner. In this way, President Trump’s acknowledgment of Mr. Douglass’s increased public recognition will only become more apparent.

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