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Bring Me Bread and Roses
It’s Not as Weird As It Seems
Bread and Roses Humanism. The whole title has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? I mean, who doesn’t like both of those things? Bread offers sustenance at its basest level, and roses are beautiful and smell sweet (also, by any other name…).
Sure, it’s utopian and therefore the whole thing is likely to fail, but the notion isn’t altogether absurd on its face. Or, at least it isn’t to me. So, on that level take it with a grain of salt, I suppose.
Here’s the gist: the basic political/labor slogan, “an injury to one is an injury to all” is at the core of the Bread and Roses ideal. I can ascribe to this. I think I’ve always believed this way, anyway. I mean, if you hurt my neighbor, I’m not cool with that. I’ve always been the ultimate mama-bear and in fact, it has been tragically difficult for me over the years to not come to the aid of my children, even now that they are grown-ass adults. Hurt them, and you hurt me by extension.
Let’s go back to the actual, actual origin of “Bread and Roses,” though, for a more thorough understanding.
The genesis of the phrase hails from James Oppenheim’s poem, first published in a 1911 issue of American Magazine:
“Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; bread and…
