“Beginning there in Texas, the Black Americans celebrating Juneteenth emphasized that emancipation in the United States meant not just freedom from enslavement, but also freedom to shape the nation’s future.”
Yet, it’s devastatingly sad that these words still lack absolute veracity on so many levels — on both visible and invisible spectra.
“Beginning there in Texas, the Black Americans celebrating Juneteenth emphasized that emancipation in the United States meant not just freedom from enslavement, but also freedom to shape the nation’s future.”
Yet, it’s devastatingly sad that these words still lack absolute veracity on so many levels — on both visible and invisible spectra.
Yes, you are correct. Texas along with several other red states, are moving backward to 1851. These Texas GOP intentions take rights away that have been gained throughout time by women, people of color, LQTBQ folks, and others. Minorities are being thrust backwards. Our right to vote, to attend public schools, to live safely with firearms, to choose our healthcare(women) are all on the chopping block. Basically, the only people with any "right" to live and love freely are straight white males with money. I am fearful of a country that treats it's citizens who are not wealthy and white like garbage. There are more of us than there are of them. We have got to figure out how to use our strength in numbers to stop this from happening.
When We were in our mid-twenties and working in the Pittsburgh area I went with a church group to take use clothes and items to poor white people in West Virginia. It really opened my eyes to see these poor being treated similar to our black families. A year later we took a group of teens and adults for a work week to a black college in Mississippi (Mary Holmes College) another life changing event for this mid-west white boy. How we treat the other people is in no way Christian, it is just evil.
Getting people to actively commit to learning about all candidates for all offices from the local school board and city council on up is a good beginning. Getting people committed to vote and actively encourage others to do so is another way. For too long too many people have taken everything for granted - that all government will continue to do what it's supposed to and life will carry merrily along as always has significantly brought us to the point we now face. There will always be those looking to take advantage for their own benefit. It's like evil, hiding in the shadowed details. There are Putins all over the world just waiting.
Well-said, Rusty. I have felt this way for a long time. I've been guilty, too, of taking our democracy for granted and not watching. We need watch dogs and community organizers to teach people what's going on and mobilize them to get to the polls.
Yesterday the lead review in the NYT Book Review was about a book detailing how people of color have been treated by our health care system. Even the review made me sick. I still haven't finished The Half That Has Never Been Told about cotton slavery although today's letter reminded me of why I so far haven't been able to pick it up again.
I read White Trash by Nancy Isenberg this past winter. Had to put it down a time or two to digest some of what I was learning. I like documentaries and wanted to watch one for Juneteenth. This one is a good one. There are many. But I liked the attorney’s delivery of sharing his seeking knowledge of that which he hadn’t learned. And his surprise of that fact as he is Black, and is well educated. Anyway, he touches on the cotton slavery. You may already be aware of this one. I will keep in in my ‘library’ because I will watch it again.
Diane, Thank you so much for recommending. I recently watched this excellent film, produced and narrated by Jeffrey Robinson “WHO WE ARE: A Chronicle of Racism in America. “ “Robinson has been a lawyer for 40 years. Tonight he argues his most important case. Slavery is our shared History.” Not just today, but every day. “Nothing would be as tragic as to stop at this point in Memphis. We have to see it through.” The words of Dr. Martin Luther King in Memphis, where he was assassinated in 1968. We must see it through. We must not stop. Ever.
I also read White Trash some time ago as I have family members who unfortunately fall into that category. It doesn't mean that they are not smart, but that they are ignorant and uneducated and in scut jobs if they have one. Btw, my grandmother was considered white trash while they lived in Arkansas because she did her own laundry and did not have a black woman do it. Thanks for the heads up on the documentary. We just finished Ozark last night which certainly touches on differences in how people grow up. I did love Ruth. I would like to finish the book on cotton slavery, but somehow haven't been able to do it as well as a book on removing Native Americans from the east to across the Mississippi. Maybe if we weren't awash in all kinds of horrible behavior, I could concentrate on those books. OK, I can wish.
Thank you for such a clear explanation of what we are losing. The thing is there are more good people than bad people in this situation. The problem is the good people are by and large checked out.
Hideous, horrendous, inhumane, unconscionable. I own you. I own you because you are less than human. I am superior to you. I have the right to treat you as bad or worse than any vermin, any pest.
I have read this book and seen the movie. "Hollywood" and Netflix have shown us the previews and the trailers. It has been sneaking up on us for many years. But we didn't think it could happen here. It has and is. We have taken our democracy and human rights for granted. I still don't hear or see enough rage in reaction.
I'm not sure rage will solve the problem. Disgust might. Maybe the trick is to reject their reality, ignore it to death, isolate it, boycott it, and create the world we want where personality and character supercede skin color, and ethnic background. Let the haters' own bad attitude destroy them. Dont work in their businesses. Don't buy their products. We can set a good example, and make it socially and financially unexceptable to judge on superficialities.
People find it impossible to think that we could lose our Democracy. (If they even think about it at all.)
In terms of human rights. That is such a wide wide vague term. Which human rights are you speaking of Bill? I am not looking for an historical recounting. I am interested in 2022.
I'd start with the right to vote - easily without obstacles. And the right to know that vote will be counted and not questioned by some conspiracy embracing nutcase.
The right to healthcare, education, a living wage if I am willing to work hard, shelter, safe water, breathable air, food security (amount and safety). The right to have affordable access to broadband internet in order to function in this world.
The right to be whoever and what ever you want to be - regardless of gender, orientation, color, creed, faith. The right of a woman to determine her own reproductive destiny. The right to not fear police at a traffic stop. The right to not fear being slaughtered by a deranged 18 year old punk with a weapon of war while shopping for bananas.
It's medieval. It will put all of us back in that life style. I know there are some good people in Texas, but I wish the rest WOULD leave the country. The question is, who would want them? I don't see how they can have any self respect.
It would be a nightmare in terms of interstate commerce, but I think more and more Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi - blood red states should leave the Union. They want no federal government. Let them go.
Secession would be completely impossible and not at all feasible. People on the left are frustrated with what goes on in "red" states--so am I and I LIVE here!--but what about the cities in these "red" states, cities that are the "blue islands" in them? What about a state like Mississippi, for example, that has such a large African-American population? Louisiana has the highest percentage of African-Americans in the country. I don't think these populations are going to be okay with their state "seceding" around them. Just wanting the "red" states to "go away" is understandable, but it's not as simple as it was in 1860 and there are plenty of us down here that would suffer unfairly. So who's going to pay for me and others like me to move to a "blue" state? I'm on a severely limited, fixed income, so that means I, and others, would be consigned to live in "another country" I want no part of?? Get real.
I know. It would be impossible. But there are already people talking about moving to blue states because their lives will become unbearable with the fascist/ oligarchs.
The disturbing realization for me, though, is while I agree with “just move to another country that has values that match yours” or “just secede already!” we know, from history, that those who choose fascism and an authoritarian culture, cults for that matter, are rarely satisfied with that first conquest. The addiction to power and control. “Live and let live” is nowhere to be found in their creed.
I will see this, at least they are no longer hiding their evil intent. It's out there in black and white, full of hatred and ugliness, and truly demonstrating that Rs are indeed the party of death to anything that approaches human decency among other things.
You know what, Rob, when I first showed up here about four years ago, I thought you were being unduly harsh. That’s because I was ill-informed. Now that I know your personal history, and the true sordid back-story of racism in the U.S., I don’t think you’re harsh enough. Slowly but slowly, I have accepted the Republicans and Trump supporters as the black cancer they are.
It's telling that the Texas GOP, reveling in its delusional self-anointed superiority, can't govern its way out of a paper bag. In other words, these cruel abominations stand out not just for their inhumanity but their ineptness.
I agree. It is galling that these people are elected to serve people, their constituents, to represent them and their needs. What they are doing though is trying to throw these same people under the bus and harm them. These people are the very people who pay their salaries from tax payer funds. We are paying people to sh*t on us. It is beyond outrageous.
All of them make me want to vomit. And all or most of them claim to be Christians. And yes, they are inept, but then, they do not give a damn for the ordinary people of Texas, some of whom keeps voting these monsters in.
I’ve reread your last paragraph, Rowshan, a few times. The “visible and invisible spectra” is a compelling thought. I replied to a later comment about Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste. I’m going to repeat the comment here. It was the first thing I thought of today after reading another favorite historian, Professor Richardson. It so fits Juneteenth.
…..responding to comment….Thank you, Richard for “casting” a light on this book on this day. Isabel Wilkerson’s works have been referenced by many on this forum, including myself. Her book, Caste, sits on my bedside table so I can peruse it when I look to find a passage.
Two of my favorite passages are her interaction with the plumber in Chapter 31 and a short anecdote she tells about after a talk she gave at the British Library in London. Pgs 52-53. In honor of Juneteenth, I will quote that particular very fitting passage….
(a Nigerian-born playwright at the lecture is intrigued by the Great Migration of 6 million African Americans seeking political asylum within the borders of their own country after emancipation. A history she was unaware of. She says to Ms. Wilkerson, who is quite startled by and has never forgotten her words.)
“‘You know there are no black people in Africa,’ she said.
Most Americans, weaned on the myth of drawable lines between human beings, have to sit with that statement. It sounds nonsensical. Of course there are black people in Africa. How could anyone not see that?
(She continues) ‘Africans are not black. They are Igbo and Yoruba, Ewe, Alan, Ndebele. They are not black. They are just themselves. They are humans on the land. That is how they see themselves, and that is who they are.’ What is gospel in America is alien to them. ‘They don’t become black until they go to America or come to the U.K. It is then that they become black.’”
Ms. Wilkerson continues as HCR often does with truth as historical perspective. “It was in the making of the New World that Europeans became white, Africans black, and everyone else yellow, red, or brown. It was in the making of the New World that humans were set apart on the basis of what they looked like, identified solely in contrast to one another, and ranked to form a caste system based on a new concept called race. It was in the process of ranking that we were all cast into assigned roles to meet the needs of the larger production.
None of us are ourselves.”
On this day, I reflect how I do the work to cast myself into the role of who I am as a human, not the assigned role given to me as a white female.
My deep gratitude to historians and gifted authors such as Wilkerson to shining Light on truth. This is how we move forward. “A world without caste would set everyone free.”
You're right about the sadness and frustration of being short of the goal but the ferocity, viciousness and intransigence of those who oppose not just further progress but would reverse many of the advances we've made indicates how cornered they feel and how close we are to much greater progress if we can only stand firmly united in that cause.
“Beginning there in Texas, the Black Americans celebrating Juneteenth emphasized that emancipation in the United States meant not just freedom from enslavement, but also freedom to shape the nation’s future.”
Yet, it’s devastatingly sad that these words still lack absolute veracity on so many levels — on both visible and invisible spectra.
The Texas GOP intentions as set out yesterday are a hideous contrast.
Yes, you are correct. Texas along with several other red states, are moving backward to 1851. These Texas GOP intentions take rights away that have been gained throughout time by women, people of color, LQTBQ folks, and others. Minorities are being thrust backwards. Our right to vote, to attend public schools, to live safely with firearms, to choose our healthcare(women) are all on the chopping block. Basically, the only people with any "right" to live and love freely are straight white males with money. I am fearful of a country that treats it's citizens who are not wealthy and white like garbage. There are more of us than there are of them. We have got to figure out how to use our strength in numbers to stop this from happening.
When We were in our mid-twenties and working in the Pittsburgh area I went with a church group to take use clothes and items to poor white people in West Virginia. It really opened my eyes to see these poor being treated similar to our black families. A year later we took a group of teens and adults for a work week to a black college in Mississippi (Mary Holmes College) another life changing event for this mid-west white boy. How we treat the other people is in no way Christian, it is just evil.
I agree - and frequently need to check my own biases and attitudes and fears.
“Depart from me, I never knew you” will forever ring in the ears of a good many CINO’s (Christians in name only).
I've never hear the acronym CINO but So-o-o accurate. Will have to remember that one.
I just call them Pharisees. Have ever since I ran for my life
Getting people to actively commit to learning about all candidates for all offices from the local school board and city council on up is a good beginning. Getting people committed to vote and actively encourage others to do so is another way. For too long too many people have taken everything for granted - that all government will continue to do what it's supposed to and life will carry merrily along as always has significantly brought us to the point we now face. There will always be those looking to take advantage for their own benefit. It's like evil, hiding in the shadowed details. There are Putins all over the world just waiting.
Well-said, Rusty. I have felt this way for a long time. I've been guilty, too, of taking our democracy for granted and not watching. We need watch dogs and community organizers to teach people what's going on and mobilize them to get to the polls.
Yesterday the lead review in the NYT Book Review was about a book detailing how people of color have been treated by our health care system. Even the review made me sick. I still haven't finished The Half That Has Never Been Told about cotton slavery although today's letter reminded me of why I so far haven't been able to pick it up again.
I read White Trash by Nancy Isenberg this past winter. Had to put it down a time or two to digest some of what I was learning. I like documentaries and wanted to watch one for Juneteenth. This one is a good one. There are many. But I liked the attorney’s delivery of sharing his seeking knowledge of that which he hadn’t learned. And his surprise of that fact as he is Black, and is well educated. Anyway, he touches on the cotton slavery. You may already be aware of this one. I will keep in in my ‘library’ because I will watch it again.
https://www.netflix.com/watch/81488493?trackId=14277281&tctx=-97%2C-97%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C
Diane, Thank you so much for recommending. I recently watched this excellent film, produced and narrated by Jeffrey Robinson “WHO WE ARE: A Chronicle of Racism in America. “ “Robinson has been a lawyer for 40 years. Tonight he argues his most important case. Slavery is our shared History.” Not just today, but every day. “Nothing would be as tragic as to stop at this point in Memphis. We have to see it through.” The words of Dr. Martin Luther King in Memphis, where he was assassinated in 1968. We must see it through. We must not stop. Ever.
WE are all the WE.
Thank YOU!! For taking time to watch, for taking time to describe which helps to draw people
in and pique curiosity, and for articulating your feelings. Much appreciated. Indeed, we are the we.
Sharing indeed makes a difference in the world. Thank you! J Robinson has an important message for all of us.
I also read White Trash some time ago as I have family members who unfortunately fall into that category. It doesn't mean that they are not smart, but that they are ignorant and uneducated and in scut jobs if they have one. Btw, my grandmother was considered white trash while they lived in Arkansas because she did her own laundry and did not have a black woman do it. Thanks for the heads up on the documentary. We just finished Ozark last night which certainly touches on differences in how people grow up. I did love Ruth. I would like to finish the book on cotton slavery, but somehow haven't been able to do it as well as a book on removing Native Americans from the east to across the Mississippi. Maybe if we weren't awash in all kinds of horrible behavior, I could concentrate on those books. OK, I can wish.
Thank you for such a clear explanation of what we are losing. The thing is there are more good people than bad people in this situation. The problem is the good people are by and large checked out.
Not simply hideous, but horrendous and inhumane!
Hideous, horrendous, inhumane, unconscionable. I own you. I own you because you are less than human. I am superior to you. I have the right to treat you as bad or worse than any vermin, any pest.
It's like something out of a dystopian nightmare.
I have read this book and seen the movie. "Hollywood" and Netflix have shown us the previews and the trailers. It has been sneaking up on us for many years. But we didn't think it could happen here. It has and is. We have taken our democracy and human rights for granted. I still don't hear or see enough rage in reaction.
I'm not sure rage will solve the problem. Disgust might. Maybe the trick is to reject their reality, ignore it to death, isolate it, boycott it, and create the world we want where personality and character supercede skin color, and ethnic background. Let the haters' own bad attitude destroy them. Dont work in their businesses. Don't buy their products. We can set a good example, and make it socially and financially unexceptable to judge on superficialities.
You mean...be the adults? I love it.
Marginalize hate and bigotry. Reward those who respect human rights.
We have violated human rights for almost 2.5 centuries now — that’s nothing new.
People find it impossible to think that we could lose our Democracy. (If they even think about it at all.)
In terms of human rights. That is such a wide wide vague term. Which human rights are you speaking of Bill? I am not looking for an historical recounting. I am interested in 2022.
I'd start with the right to vote - easily without obstacles. And the right to know that vote will be counted and not questioned by some conspiracy embracing nutcase.
The right to healthcare, education, a living wage if I am willing to work hard, shelter, safe water, breathable air, food security (amount and safety). The right to have affordable access to broadband internet in order to function in this world.
The right to be whoever and what ever you want to be - regardless of gender, orientation, color, creed, faith. The right of a woman to determine her own reproductive destiny. The right to not fear police at a traffic stop. The right to not fear being slaughtered by a deranged 18 year old punk with a weapon of war while shopping for bananas.
Those are some basics. How am I doing?
Thank You. These are excellent. And thanks for the sincere answer. I was afraid you were going to fuss at my question.
But it’s real and they mean every syllable, sad to say
Absolutely. They HATE us. The irony is they have always called us the haters, yet ....
It's only THEIR reality,
not ours.
I'm stickin' to mine.
Yes, Jeri, you are very right when you say this.
The Democrats would do well to publicize the Texas GOP platform document, with appropriate commentary, of course.
It's medieval. It will put all of us back in that life style. I know there are some good people in Texas, but I wish the rest WOULD leave the country. The question is, who would want them? I don't see how they can have any self respect.
Putin or Bolsonaro?
It would be a nightmare in terms of interstate commerce, but I think more and more Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi - blood red states should leave the Union. They want no federal government. Let them go.
Secession would be completely impossible and not at all feasible. People on the left are frustrated with what goes on in "red" states--so am I and I LIVE here!--but what about the cities in these "red" states, cities that are the "blue islands" in them? What about a state like Mississippi, for example, that has such a large African-American population? Louisiana has the highest percentage of African-Americans in the country. I don't think these populations are going to be okay with their state "seceding" around them. Just wanting the "red" states to "go away" is understandable, but it's not as simple as it was in 1860 and there are plenty of us down here that would suffer unfairly. So who's going to pay for me and others like me to move to a "blue" state? I'm on a severely limited, fixed income, so that means I, and others, would be consigned to live in "another country" I want no part of?? Get real.
With you, Bruce, Blue island “neighbor!” 💙
Of course it would be impossible . Don't be so literal
I know. It would be impossible. But there are already people talking about moving to blue states because their lives will become unbearable with the fascist/ oligarchs.
The disturbing realization for me, though, is while I agree with “just move to another country that has values that match yours” or “just secede already!” we know, from history, that those who choose fascism and an authoritarian culture, cults for that matter, are rarely satisfied with that first conquest. The addiction to power and control. “Live and let live” is nowhere to be found in their creed.
The U. S. is being watched by those in countries that want to overturn democracy
I will see this, at least they are no longer hiding their evil intent. It's out there in black and white, full of hatred and ugliness, and truly demonstrating that Rs are indeed the party of death to anything that approaches human decency among other things.
I call it The Repugnant Party and ppl dare not chastise me for name-calling.
If the name fits (which it does) then wear it.
You know what, Rob, when I first showed up here about four years ago, I thought you were being unduly harsh. That’s because I was ill-informed. Now that I know your personal history, and the true sordid back-story of racism in the U.S., I don’t think you’re harsh enough. Slowly but slowly, I have accepted the Republicans and Trump supporters as the black cancer they are.
I have no problem with name calling a party or pols if they deserve it.
It's telling that the Texas GOP, reveling in its delusional self-anointed superiority, can't govern its way out of a paper bag. In other words, these cruel abominations stand out not just for their inhumanity but their ineptness.
I agree. It is galling that these people are elected to serve people, their constituents, to represent them and their needs. What they are doing though is trying to throw these same people under the bus and harm them. These people are the very people who pay their salaries from tax payer funds. We are paying people to sh*t on us. It is beyond outrageous.
All of them make me want to vomit. And all or most of them claim to be Christians. And yes, they are inept, but then, they do not give a damn for the ordinary people of Texas, some of whom keeps voting these monsters in.
Michele- Jean-Pierre Garau has came up w/ a very appropriate term for those folk-CINO's. He pointed it out above-Christians In Name Only.
I like it. I also call them hypocrites!
So true.
I’ve reread your last paragraph, Rowshan, a few times. The “visible and invisible spectra” is a compelling thought. I replied to a later comment about Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste. I’m going to repeat the comment here. It was the first thing I thought of today after reading another favorite historian, Professor Richardson. It so fits Juneteenth.
…..responding to comment….Thank you, Richard for “casting” a light on this book on this day. Isabel Wilkerson’s works have been referenced by many on this forum, including myself. Her book, Caste, sits on my bedside table so I can peruse it when I look to find a passage.
Two of my favorite passages are her interaction with the plumber in Chapter 31 and a short anecdote she tells about after a talk she gave at the British Library in London. Pgs 52-53. In honor of Juneteenth, I will quote that particular very fitting passage….
(a Nigerian-born playwright at the lecture is intrigued by the Great Migration of 6 million African Americans seeking political asylum within the borders of their own country after emancipation. A history she was unaware of. She says to Ms. Wilkerson, who is quite startled by and has never forgotten her words.)
“‘You know there are no black people in Africa,’ she said.
Most Americans, weaned on the myth of drawable lines between human beings, have to sit with that statement. It sounds nonsensical. Of course there are black people in Africa. How could anyone not see that?
(She continues) ‘Africans are not black. They are Igbo and Yoruba, Ewe, Alan, Ndebele. They are not black. They are just themselves. They are humans on the land. That is how they see themselves, and that is who they are.’ What is gospel in America is alien to them. ‘They don’t become black until they go to America or come to the U.K. It is then that they become black.’”
Ms. Wilkerson continues as HCR often does with truth as historical perspective. “It was in the making of the New World that Europeans became white, Africans black, and everyone else yellow, red, or brown. It was in the making of the New World that humans were set apart on the basis of what they looked like, identified solely in contrast to one another, and ranked to form a caste system based on a new concept called race. It was in the process of ranking that we were all cast into assigned roles to meet the needs of the larger production.
None of us are ourselves.”
On this day, I reflect how I do the work to cast myself into the role of who I am as a human, not the assigned role given to me as a white female.
My deep gratitude to historians and gifted authors such as Wilkerson to shining Light on truth. This is how we move forward. “A world without caste would set everyone free.”
Unitad!
You're right about the sadness and frustration of being short of the goal but the ferocity, viciousness and intransigence of those who oppose not just further progress but would reverse many of the advances we've made indicates how cornered they feel and how close we are to much greater progress if we can only stand firmly united in that cause.
There's a lotof truth in that, Dave. Thank you.
You know it’s bad when a Virus has more rights than the human it can kill .
Texas, largest basket case in the lower 48.