Individual vs Community

Among my race, it’s sounded like a gong
‘One cannot be right, and society, wrong.’

Some tribes killed twins, deemed theirs abnormal birth,
circumcised girls, what misery to provoke,
tortured widows, left widowers untouched.
Columbus proved the Spaniards’ view a joke;
the truth they knew was that the world was flat!
A continent from slavery’s thrall awoke
when Frederick Douglas rose against the scourge.
With birth control did Marie Stopes provoke
the wrath of realms which later practised it.
By seeking fellow women to unyoke
did Mary Wollstonecraft enrage the world…
The list of those who public’s rules revoke
then lives uplift, is one without an end.
Minorities endure society’s yoke.
It seems that much that’s wise or right evolved
when one rebutted words society spoke.

How wrong the view that’s sounded like a gong,
‘One cannot be right, and society, wrong.’