I was so moved by her story! I wrote a film treatment, and a pitch for a limited TV series on her life, and was met by Hollywood crickets. Ditto for a novel. Our history is still deeply gatekept by those who benefit from the mythology of white supremacy. It’s sad.
That makes me sad also. It’s a fascinating story, that’s not just a story: it was someone’s life, a life well worth knowing more about in its historical significance. And on a more personal level as well. Oney demonstrated courage, bravery, fortitude and perseverance in the face of very powerful people, the government itself, and I’m sure she must have felt great fear at times. Her story translate to today’s scenarios of ICE disappearing people off the streets and treating them cruelly. Now, after the passing of Trump’s big ugly bill, every single person in this country has reason to fear this administration’s repercussions for any slight. For. Just. Speaking. Out. We are not so different than Oney and we would do well to follow her example of bravery, courage, fortitude and perseverance when we our called to defend our country and our Constitutional given rights and freedoms. The time is now. Thanks Alisa for bringing this woman’s life to our attention.
Ms. Valdes-Rodriguez, I celebrate Oney Judge today. This is the first I have heard her name. Thank you for telling her story.
Their are many myths of American white exceptionalism. Thanks for busting another one and sharing our forgotten history. We are far from the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. Much work on equality remains. Not only equality in pay, equality in opportunity, and equality in history telling.
Thank you for sharing this story, both the bravery of Oney Judge and the cruelty and selfishness of the Washingtons. What a terribly upside down world.
Thank you Alisa for telling Oney Judge’s story. It’s fascinating, and I’d never heard of it before. Women of color, Latinas and yes white women who dare to speak out against white supremacy are all met with brutal repression. My mother took her secret to her grave but I found it out later: As the oldest daughter of my grandfather, my mother was raped constantly by her own father, as well as her younger (half) sister, my older females cousins, my older half-sister and possibly me, too, but I was a baby and only have memories in my bones, that something terrible happened when I was a baby. Rape is a powerful tool of control, and incestuous rape is the most powerful of all, no matter your skin color. Rape and the power a man exerts over a woman by raping her lasts a lifetime, and leaves scars that most women, like my white mother, take to their graves, unspoken, lest they be further destroyed by trying to seek justice in an utterly unjust world. Thanks for telling the story of Oney Judge. I will celebrate her strength and freedom today, all future 4th of Julys.
Thank you, I knew that Washington was a slave holder and the worst kind of hypocrite but I’d never heard the story of Oney Judge. I grow so weary of hearing people in the modern day saying things like ‘This is not America’ or ‘We are better than this’. It is and we aren’t.
Much of what we are witnessing today is the backlash to our real history being ever more revealed. Consider the outcry over the 1619 project, we don’t want to know our own history
Fascinating story. I'd never heard of her. Thanks for sharing this.
I was so moved by her story! I wrote a film treatment, and a pitch for a limited TV series on her life, and was met by Hollywood crickets. Ditto for a novel. Our history is still deeply gatekept by those who benefit from the mythology of white supremacy. It’s sad.
That makes me sad also. It’s a fascinating story, that’s not just a story: it was someone’s life, a life well worth knowing more about in its historical significance. And on a more personal level as well. Oney demonstrated courage, bravery, fortitude and perseverance in the face of very powerful people, the government itself, and I’m sure she must have felt great fear at times. Her story translate to today’s scenarios of ICE disappearing people off the streets and treating them cruelly. Now, after the passing of Trump’s big ugly bill, every single person in this country has reason to fear this administration’s repercussions for any slight. For. Just. Speaking. Out. We are not so different than Oney and we would do well to follow her example of bravery, courage, fortitude and perseverance when we our called to defend our country and our Constitutional given rights and freedoms. The time is now. Thanks Alisa for bringing this woman’s life to our attention.
Ms. Valdes-Rodriguez, I celebrate Oney Judge today. This is the first I have heard her name. Thank you for telling her story.
Their are many myths of American white exceptionalism. Thanks for busting another one and sharing our forgotten history. We are far from the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. Much work on equality remains. Not only equality in pay, equality in opportunity, and equality in history telling.
Thank you for sharing this story, both the bravery of Oney Judge and the cruelty and selfishness of the Washingtons. What a terribly upside down world.
Thank you Alisa for telling Oney Judge’s story. It’s fascinating, and I’d never heard of it before. Women of color, Latinas and yes white women who dare to speak out against white supremacy are all met with brutal repression. My mother took her secret to her grave but I found it out later: As the oldest daughter of my grandfather, my mother was raped constantly by her own father, as well as her younger (half) sister, my older females cousins, my older half-sister and possibly me, too, but I was a baby and only have memories in my bones, that something terrible happened when I was a baby. Rape is a powerful tool of control, and incestuous rape is the most powerful of all, no matter your skin color. Rape and the power a man exerts over a woman by raping her lasts a lifetime, and leaves scars that most women, like my white mother, take to their graves, unspoken, lest they be further destroyed by trying to seek justice in an utterly unjust world. Thanks for telling the story of Oney Judge. I will celebrate her strength and freedom today, all future 4th of Julys.
Thank you!
Thank you, I knew that Washington was a slave holder and the worst kind of hypocrite but I’d never heard the story of Oney Judge. I grow so weary of hearing people in the modern day saying things like ‘This is not America’ or ‘We are better than this’. It is and we aren’t.
Much of what we are witnessing today is the backlash to our real history being ever more revealed. Consider the outcry over the 1619 project, we don’t want to know our own history
Alleluna to you and Oney! Thank you for clearing up a few, or a bundle, of patriarchal misconceptions