Monday, March 29, 2010

This excerpt by Terry Tempest Williams is an inspiring story about someone who is brave enough to question what she's always been told. She grew up thinking that the women in her family were contracting breast cancer due to bad genes, but with further investigation found that a nearby bomb test site was likely the cause. She states that "Tolerating blind obedience in the name of patriotism or religion ultimately take our lives." Most everything we know to be true today was once frowned upon by those who were satisfied with what they were told to believe and nothing more.
Williams not only questioned what she was taught but sacrificed in order to learn more and spread awareness to others. The government was wrong to lie to its people so as to avoid compensating for their losses. They obviously new that there could be harmful repercussions of the bomb testing or they would not have chosen a nearly desolate area to perform the experiments. It's scary to think that they would not at least issue a fair warning to people living nearby that they were about to set off a bomb near their homes.
The United States needs more people like Williams who are brave enough to take action in order to induce change. How far would you go if it were your family who had directly suffered from chemicals released by government experiments?

1 comment:

RHerrin said...

I think that you pose a good question, how far would you go if it had been your family directly affected by such an incident as this? How far can we allow our rights as American citizens to be pushed aside, with the government leaving us out in the dark? In William's story, I imagine that there are several thousand other cases such as this where either people never knew what was causes such illnesses or knew but did not have the courage to stand up to the government. In Barack Obama's speech he claims that he was running for president to make change. To make sure that everyone is served as an equal no matter your race or gender. His platform was basically a time of change is needed and its needed now. The American people want their rights back, and they want to know what is going on in the background. This ties into William's story; cases like this should never happen and the change that Barack speaks about directly pertain to this subject. Social justice must be served for all.