Why Are People Born With Hands?

Silly question? Possibly…. but maybe my theory can elaborate a bit more. Hand gestures can send signals positively or negatively. For example, we spread love by representing the peace sign or holding a loved ones hand. This makes others feel content and comfortable with everyday life. For the ones who are dependent on sign language (language through hand movements) it is important we interact with them correctly. Deaf or not, hand gestures make people listen to you. We are born with no knowledge of how to speak so we use them to interact with others. On the other hand, we stick up our middle fingers or possibly even strike someone when they anger us. Why do we choose to intimidate others in harmful ways? Does it always prevent them from committing the same acts that frustrate us? We are quick to judge that these type of people are crude and disrespectful, but we don’t know how they were raised. Obviously this doesn’t give them an excuse to injure others, but they may feel it helps them get their point across. Depending on one's environment at home while growing up, they may be influenced by their family/guardians by the way they treat their surroundings and other people.  

A brief poem I analyzed recently named, “A Mother’s Tale”, by Ai explains a mother's advice to her son (Juanito) who is about to become a newlywed. We quickly learn that she had a rough past with her husband considering she gashed his face with a pocket knife due to him dancing with another woman. The story wasn’t detailed enough to determine who the woman actually was, and if the man actually deserved it. Most people who read this may just find the mother psychotic. I personally believe the mother was showing her true colors and strength in this piece to show her son that women are willing to fight their battles. Of course I don’t agree her action was correct to do so. She claims that he must show authority in his relationship by engaging in domestic violence or else the wife may feel obligated to. His wife must contain the “knowledge that she is alive because of you” (even though I’m pretty sure women give birth to humankind but what do I know right). The issue here is that the mother is basing her experiences on possible real life scenarios that may happen to Juanito when we all know every relationship flows differently based on the two peoples personalities. I don’t know, I mean clearly this woman has a lot of trust issues to want to stab their loved one in the cheek. Hopefully Juanito has some common sense and doesn’t retain the information provided by his mother for his future marriage.

“Like A Winding Sheet”, by Ann Petry also represents a story based on domestic violence. An interesting recognition in the story is that it takes place on Friday the thirteenth so we know sh*ts about to go down. The narrative explains a couple who lives together in the early 1900s and both work in a factory due to their skin color. The main character, Johnson, is shown as a hard-working and drained individual who is at first very respectable towards his wife, Mae. After a long day of being reminded he isn’t privileged due to his skin color, he feels very triggered and upset when he arrives home. We learn that he has the urge to hit others that disrespect him, but he doesn’t actually go through with it. On top of that, his wife calls him a racial slur as they are about to eat dinner together and he immediately backfires by harming her. This was clearly unexpected, but we soon learn that Johnson must have had some sort of influence to want to commit such an act on Mae.

The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey states that “more than one-third of women and one in 12 men have experienced intimate partner violence in their lifetime” (domesticshelters.org). Hurting others is only setting themselves up for disaster in the long run. These people will never know what real love feels like if they are constantly being reminded that they have no self-worth. We must come together and help prevent others from constantly getting abused because no one deserves it. If you know someone going through this, please get them assistance because you may be their only help. A person in an abusive relationship is most likely too intimidated to receive the help they need themselves. It is sad that some people in our society and media portray domestic violence as beneficial to a relationship, but we must realize and explain to others that it is not valuable to any type of relationship whatsoever. Use your hands to spread love and peace, not conflict.

Priscilla Z.