The Subtle and Not So Subtle Messages

An excerpt from the Washington Post - 

‘Super racist’ pool safety poster prompts Red Cross apology

By Peter Holley

(Courtesy Margaret Sawyer)

The poster — titled “Be Cool, Follow The Rules” — depicts various children playing at the pool. But white children are labeled as behaving in a “cool” way while children of color who are depicted defying pool rules are labeled “not cool.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/06/27/super-racist-pool-safety-poster-prompts-red-cross-apology/?tid=pm_national_pop_b

You Could Help

An  excerpt from The Huffington Post -

You Could Help Save A Trafficking Victim’s Life With Your Hotel Room Pic
Hotel rooms are optimal locations for traffickers because they can pay in cash and switch locations on a nightly basis.
By Eleanor Goldberg

Just snapping a photo of your hotel room the next time you go on vacation could help save a trafficking victim.

Human trafficking is the world’s fastest growing crime, and victims who are exploited for sex aren’t just getting victimized in unsuspecting homes and closed off backrooms.

Hotels are optimal spots for traffickers to exploit their victims because they can pay for the rooms in cash and change locations on a nightly basis without being detected.

From 2007 to last year, the National Human Trafficking Resource Center and Polaris’s BeFree texting helpline received 1,434 reports of human trafficking in hotels and motels.

That’s why TraffickCam, a new app, is urging vacationers to upload pictures of their hotel rooms. The goal is to create a database of hotel rooms to match up against photos that pimps post online.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/taking-a-photo-of-your-hotel-room-could-help-save-a-trafficking-victims-life_us_57714091e4b0f168323a1ed7?section=

A Needed Road Map

An excerpt from Now I Know -

The Negro Motorist Green Book

Every year, Zagat publishes a series of guides to the restaurants in virtually every major city in the United States. The guides feature short, curated descriptions of each eatery, touching upon the must-have (or must-avoid) dishes, the service, the decor, and of course, the price. But it what Zagat doesn’t tell you is if they’ll serve you if you’re black.

Hopefully, there’s good reason for that -- for more than fifty years, it’s been illegal for a restaurant in the United States to refuse service to a diner on the basis of his or her race, and culturally, doing so is simply unacceptable. But again, that wasn’t true a half-century or so ago. For an African-American family, traveling through certain parts of the country was difficult, as finding a place to eat or sleep which wanted your business could be hard to come by.

And before the law could catch up to the problem, a postal worker did.

The result: the Negro Motorist Green Book

http://nowiknow.com/the-negro-motorist-green-book/

He Chose Us

There has been lots of chatter about Jesse Williams' spectacular speech last night as the recipient of the 2016 BET Humanitarian Award.  This young man was oozing with enlightenment and encouragement, all for the world to see.

The thing that resonated with me was his acknowledgement of, and appreciation for, black women and the fact that too often we're at the forefront of struggles to make changes, and yet while we're taking care of everyone else, few people are taking care of us.

In acknowledging that this award is to be shared with others, he said, “Now, this is also in particular for the black women in particular who have spent their lifetimes dedicated to nurturing everyone before themselves. We can and will do better for you.”

How many times have we heard this?

Right.

Not many.

One of the articles I read about the speech compared Jesse to President Obama, a biracial man who chose a sho' nuff, no doubt about it, black woman as his wife.  So too, has this young man.

Should this make a difference?

Should it matter?

You decide.

Whichever way the wind blows for you, this I can say with confidence.

I can't help but be filled with pride when I see someone - young, gifted, and talented (and truth be told could have any woman he wanted) - who makes a choice to chose someone who looks like me.

Does this invalidate those who choose otherwise?

No.

But from my side of the fence, I appreciate the validation.

And this was just one of many truths he spoke.

He was on fire!

Cultural appropriation anyone?

If you haven't seen his speech, check it out in the previous post, or google Jesse Williams BET.

Jesse Williams BET Awards Speech 2016

Buried in Boxes

As quickly as it began, my time here in the Middle East is coming to an end.

I'll be heading back to the US in mid-July.

As I've said many times before, this has been an amazing journey, one that I'll treasure forever.

It has been a time of extraordinary growth and reflection, and I'm confident in saying I'm a better person because of it.

 

So, as I pack up my world once again, please understand as I go dark for a few days while everything gets sorted.

It has been a blast.

As always, thanks for coming along with me.

Emily Valentine: 'The first lady of rugby'

Olli Self-Driving Electric Bus By IBM’s Watson And Local Motors

You first.

**Unfold your new garden.**

Calysta Bevier: Teen Cancer Survivor Gets Simon Cowell's Golden Buzzer -...

Tennessee fireflies: A summertime light show

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/fireflies-of-the-great-smoky-mountains

How Will I Be Remembered?

The older I get, the more precious I recognize time is.

I wonder, how will I be remembered?

Will I be remembered as a hothead, quick to anger and quick to pounce?

Will I be remembered as close-minded and stubborn?

Will I be remembered as selfish and self-centered?

Will I be remembered as a woman who could put any man to shame in a cussing battle?

I wonder because I've been all of those things.

My life has been littered with ugly periods.

Periods of self-pity and self-doubt.

Periods of lashing out instead of looking in.

But as I approach 60 years old, I appreciate life so much more, and I am better equipped to understand that I have choices.

I know now that I've always had choices.

I can choose to be miserable, or I can choose to be happy.

I can choose to be a b*tch, or I can choose to be a blessing.

I can choose to see the good in others, or I can nitpick and magnify every perceived fault.

I can choose to see life as a glass half full, or I can choose to see it half empty.

Quoting Oprah, here's what I know for sure.

I know that if I dropped dead today (heaven forbid), I have lived a magnificent life.

Not just because of this marvelous adventure I've been on for the past five years that has taken me around the world, but because of the people I've met along the way, and the family I was blessed to be born in, and the one I was even more bless to have.

I thank God for the little country town of China, Texas where I first learned to live alone in peace.

I thank God for my mother for the wisdom and understanding she imparted, and the wherewithal to finally "get" all of the things she was trying to teach us.

I thank God for my brothers who wrapped me in love and protection, especially Forrest, who has been more of a father to me than our father ever was.

I thank God for the segregated environment where I learned my worth when I was knee-high to a duck so that we when did integrate, it was rooted in my being.

I thank God for the experience of attending an HBCU, where there were thousands of black folks with one goal in mind, to be better so that we could do better.

I thank God for my ex-husband (believe me when I say I never thought I'd be writing these words) for the good times and bad because it was through these experiences that I was forced to grow up.

I thank God for my boys who are now men with families of their own, men that I'm so very proud of.

I thank God for my grandchildren.  What a blessing they are!

I thank God for this time of living and working in a foreign land and how it has opened my eyes and broadened my perspective in unimaginable and extraordinary ways.

So, here's how I hope to be remembered.

I hope that I'll be remembered as someone who loved to learn.

As someone who learned from her mistakes.

As someone who learned to be brave enough to speak her mind, not in anger and retribution, but in love and understanding (I'm still working on this one).

As someone who had faith in God and the goodness of humanity.

As someone who strived to be a blessing, and never a burden.

As someone who appreciated life and the many lessons it teaches us.

I hope that I'll be remembered as the flawed human being I am, always striving to be better.

Say What?

An excerpt from LifeHack - 

Science Explains How Camping For A Week Can Largely Change Your Productivity

When someone starts talking about productivity, and how to be more productive our mind often drifts off. We may think that to become more productive we need to undertake some difficult model of behavior or to adopt habits that we feel will be hard to stick to. However, recent scientific findings have indicated a week of camping can effectively change our sleeping patterns, which in turn can lead to greater alertness and productivity, because early risers are found to be more productive than night owls.

http://www.lifehack.org/405674/science-explains-how-camping-for-a-week-can-largely-change-your-productivity

Beyoncé, Ed Sheeran & Gary Clark Jr. Tribute Stevie Wonder

From BlackAmerciaWeb -

Top 10 Best Musical Tributes Ever



http://blackamericaweb.com/2016/06/22/top-10-best-musical-tributes-ever/

Portable Showers

An excerpt from Upworthy -

He turned a $5,000 truck into a mobile shower that's making a big difference.
JUNE 21, 2016

That's why Austin wants to make it easier for people in his city to get clean using an incredible mobile shower truck.

It's like a food truck, but for showers! Photo by Shower to the People, used with permission.

The brilliant name for his new nonprofit? Shower to the People.

Jake bought an old truck off Craigslist for $5,000, and after a successful GoFundMe campaign and help from a bunch of really smart people, he retrofitted it to house two private shower stalls with sinks and mirrors.

The unit hooks up to fire hydrants and heats the water using an external generator, meaning the truck can travel and provide free, warm showers pretty much anywhere in the city.

According to Austin, St. Louis has plenty of homeless shelters, but the showers are usually only open to official residents.

"Folks will save up what money they can find and try to get a gym membership. Beyond that they'll use public sinks, libraries, the river. Or they'll go into people's backyards to use the hose," he says.

The Shower to the People truck is an awesome, low-cost solution that offers more privacy, more convenience, better-kept facilities, and shower services for 60 people every day.

http://www.upworthy.com/he-turned-a-5000-truck-into-a-mobile-shower-thats-making-a-big-difference?c=upw1

Meet Atlanta's HeaveN Beatbox

My. My. My.

ESPN.  The Body Issue.

http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/page/body/espn-magazine-body-issue?ex_cid=espntw

Broadway for Orlando - What The World Needs Now is Love - Music Video

http://www.broadwayrecords.com/shop/broadway-for-orlando-what-the-world-needs-now-is-love-mp3

Does It Matter?

Excerpts from Atlas  Obscura -

In Indonesia, Non-Binary Gender is a Centuries-Old Idea
Modern Western culture is slowly acknowledging gender fluidity, but "third genders" and other classifications have existed throughout history.
By Jessie Guy-Ryan

This week, an Oregon judge ruled to allow Jamie Shupe, a 52-year-old former Army mechanic, to list themselves as non-binary—that is, neither male nor female on their driver’s license. The ruling is likely the first time that an individual has been allowed to legally identify as non-binary in the United States, and represents part of a growing effort around the world to extend legal recognition to those whose identities fall outside the masculine/feminine gender binary.

~~~~~~~~~

The Bugis are the largest ethnic group in South Sulawesi, Indonesia, and are unique in their conception of five distinct gender identities. (Bold is mine). Aside from the cisgender masculinity and femininity that Westerners are broadly familiar with, the Bugis interpretation of gender includes calabai (feminine men), calalai (masculine women) and bissu, which anthropologist Sharyn Graham describes as a “meta-gender” considered to be “a combination of all genders.” In a 2002 article for the International Institute of Asian Studies’ Newsletter, Graham explains the key role bissu play in Bugis culture.

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/in-indonesia-nonbinary-gender-is-a-centuriesold-idea

Sacrifices Made in the Name of Science

From Atlas Obscura -

Ranking the Pain of Stinging Insects, From ‘Caustic’ to ‘Blinding'

One passionate entomologist poetically describes and ranks over 70 species' painful stings.
By Lauren Young

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-colorful-pain-index-of-the-stinging-ants-bees-and-wasps-around-the-world