If Only You Were Her Friend

Dear Mrs. Flint,

“I could not blame her.”

These were the words uttered about you by Linda, the young girl who was enslaved by your husband and, in many ways, by you. For years and years, you have mistreated her and subjected her to degrading abuse because of your immense jealousy of your husband’s advances toward her. You forbade her to wear the shoes her grandmother made for her - the only material she had which was of any value to her - but I suppose you would say that it was of you and your husband’s possession. You hated her and wished for her to be punished because your husband would not punish her like the others, as if the threat of violence and death in resisting him was not a factor to be considered in comparison to the pain and neglect you felt from him. You treated Linda as the scapegoat to the real root of your pain, both your pains, which was the oppressive abuse and powerlessness that Dr. Flint, among with most white men of your time, perpetuated and inflicted upon you. Linda was willing to be your ally, someone you can confide in, perhaps - and yes, I dare to say - your friend.

“Yet I, whom she detested so bitterly, had far more pity for her than he had, whose duty it was to make her life happy. I never wronged her, or wished to wrong her, and one word of kindness from her would have brought me to her feet.”

Yet I, even amongst the horrors I feel towards your mistreatment of Linda, sympathize with your pain. You had no power, though not a slave, as a wife, to speak up against the man that held right over you. You could not leave him, and the idea of divorce was impossible, and the threat of violence was ever present even as a white individual. You only wished for his affection, for your husband to treat you with the tenderness and respect that a marriage should have.

You and Linda had in common the enslaved status of womanhood.

If you had treated Linda was kindness, perhaps that would have been a form of salvation for both of you, even if temporary. Instead, you lashed out your frustrations and anger towards her that you could not express towards the real source of your despair.

If only, Mrs. Flint, you chose not to suffer alone, not to let Linda suffer alone, in your state of oppression.