An excerpt from Atlas Obscura -
The Persistent Racism of America's Cemeteries
Not only is segregation still an issue but also America risks losing important history in its forgotten graveyards.
By Jennifer Young
Earlier this summer, the city of Waco, Texas issued an order to remove a fence in the city’s public burial ground, Greenwood Cemetery. But it wasn’t just a cosmetic change: Using a forklift and power tools, City of Waco Parks & Recreation staff cut apart the chain-link fence that had been used to divide the white section of the cemetery from the black section.
The cemetery had been racially segregated since it opened in the late 1800s. It was operated by two sets of caretakers, white and black, until the city took over the cemetery about 10 years ago.
Waco is not the only Texas community to struggle with the surprisingly robust ghost of Jim Crow: This spring, the cemetery association of Normanna, Texas, about an hour outside Corpus Christi, was sued by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund for barring a white woman from burying the ashes of her Hispanic husband there. Although the cemetery association later relented, the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating. No Hispanic people are buried within the Normanna cemetery—there is one sole tombstone with a Spanish surname, located just outside the cemetery’s chain link fence.
Until the 1950s, about 90 percent of all public cemeteries in the U.S. employed a variety of racial restrictions. Until recently, to enter a cemetery was to experience, as a University of Pennsylvania geography professor put it, the “spatial segregation of the American dead.” Even when a religious cemetery was not entirely race restricted, different races were buried in separate parts of the cemetery, with whites usually getting the more attractive plots.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-persistent-racism-of-americas-cemeteries
Friday, September 9, 2016
Thursday, September 8, 2016
I Want This Guy to Wait on Me
From Stumble Upon - I was going to cherry pick the article, but I think it needs to read in its entirety to appreciate. Enjoy!
Guy Documents His First Week Of Work At Target, And It Couldn’t Get More Hilarious
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1TyQra/:W5WO3Mhu:qUZGdJog/www.boredpanda.com/first-work-week-target-cashier-kimpossibooty
Guy Documents His First Week Of Work At Target, And It Couldn’t Get More Hilarious
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1TyQra/:W5WO3Mhu:qUZGdJog/www.boredpanda.com/first-work-week-target-cashier-kimpossibooty
Wednesday, September 7, 2016
Nationalism vs. Patriotism
Excerpts from The Undefeated -
THE COURAGE OF COLIN KAEPERNICK
Given all that’s going on in America, he got it right
By Michael Eric Dyson
Nationalism is a harmful belief that can lead a country down a dangerous spiral of arrogance, or off the precipice of political narcissism. Nationalism harbors the belief that no matter what one’s country does, it must be supported. If a nation practices racism, homophobia, sexism, xenophobia or the like, it must be celebrated and accepted at all costs. Patriotism is a bigger, more uplifting virtue. Patriotism is the belief in the best values of one’s country, and the pursuit of the best means to realize those values. If the nation strays, then it must be corrected. The patriot is the person who, spotting the need for change, says so clearly and loudly, without hate or rancor. The nationalist is the person who spurns such correction and would rather take refuge in bigotry than fight it. It is the nationalists who wrap themselves in a flag and loudly proclaim themselves as patriots. That is dangerous, as glimpsed in Trump’s amplification of the worst racist and xenophobic sentiments in a generation. In the end, Trump is a nationalist, and Kaepernick is a patriot.
~~~~~~~~~~
What the controversy has also revealed is that, for the most part, the world of sports, especially football, despite all of the black bodies that make it go, is still a deeply and profoundly white enterprise that cherishes its own viewpoints and recoils at true difference. That’s why only the gridiron is integrated, with nearly 70 percent of the players black. The league’s front offices teem with white men whose outdated viewpoints, and narrow understandings of race – and sometimes, whether intending to be or not, their bigoted perspectives – hamper true progress. The players in football and basketball may be overwhelmingly black – and in the case of baseball, increasingly Latino – but the front offices of major sports are a white man’s game.
Thus when we hear statements by anonymous NFL executives that they don’t want Kaepernick near their teams because he’s a traitor, that he has no respect for our country, and “[expletive] that guy,” and that “I have never seen a guy so hated by front office guys as Kaepernick,” they betray the tolerance for fatally narrow views of black life. As long as black athletes keep their mouths shut and play the game, they’re fine. Once they range beyond deference and obedience, they’re out of bounds, and huge penalty flags are thrown.
Kaepernick’s courage has also thrown a harsh light on just how painfully inadequate are the memories, historical consciousness, and learning of some of our leading, black former football players, who now offer commentary in the media. They clearly don’t understand that without some brave soul in the past like Jim Brown within their guild speaking up at the “wrong” time, they wouldn’t today enjoy the perks of fame and wealth. Without protest and social pressure, the major sports leagues would not have been integrated. Rodney Harrison, Hines Ward and Jerry Rice were incredible athletes who offer insightful commentary about football. However, criticism of Kaepernick reveals their atrocious ignorance. Harrison argued that Kaepernick’s heart is in the right place, but that he’s “going about it in the wrong way.”
http://theundefeated.com/features/the-courage-of-colin-kaepernick/
THE COURAGE OF COLIN KAEPERNICK
Given all that’s going on in America, he got it right
By Michael Eric Dyson
Nationalism is a harmful belief that can lead a country down a dangerous spiral of arrogance, or off the precipice of political narcissism. Nationalism harbors the belief that no matter what one’s country does, it must be supported. If a nation practices racism, homophobia, sexism, xenophobia or the like, it must be celebrated and accepted at all costs. Patriotism is a bigger, more uplifting virtue. Patriotism is the belief in the best values of one’s country, and the pursuit of the best means to realize those values. If the nation strays, then it must be corrected. The patriot is the person who, spotting the need for change, says so clearly and loudly, without hate or rancor. The nationalist is the person who spurns such correction and would rather take refuge in bigotry than fight it. It is the nationalists who wrap themselves in a flag and loudly proclaim themselves as patriots. That is dangerous, as glimpsed in Trump’s amplification of the worst racist and xenophobic sentiments in a generation. In the end, Trump is a nationalist, and Kaepernick is a patriot.
~~~~~~~~~~
What the controversy has also revealed is that, for the most part, the world of sports, especially football, despite all of the black bodies that make it go, is still a deeply and profoundly white enterprise that cherishes its own viewpoints and recoils at true difference. That’s why only the gridiron is integrated, with nearly 70 percent of the players black. The league’s front offices teem with white men whose outdated viewpoints, and narrow understandings of race – and sometimes, whether intending to be or not, their bigoted perspectives – hamper true progress. The players in football and basketball may be overwhelmingly black – and in the case of baseball, increasingly Latino – but the front offices of major sports are a white man’s game.
Thus when we hear statements by anonymous NFL executives that they don’t want Kaepernick near their teams because he’s a traitor, that he has no respect for our country, and “[expletive] that guy,” and that “I have never seen a guy so hated by front office guys as Kaepernick,” they betray the tolerance for fatally narrow views of black life. As long as black athletes keep their mouths shut and play the game, they’re fine. Once they range beyond deference and obedience, they’re out of bounds, and huge penalty flags are thrown.
Kaepernick’s courage has also thrown a harsh light on just how painfully inadequate are the memories, historical consciousness, and learning of some of our leading, black former football players, who now offer commentary in the media. They clearly don’t understand that without some brave soul in the past like Jim Brown within their guild speaking up at the “wrong” time, they wouldn’t today enjoy the perks of fame and wealth. Without protest and social pressure, the major sports leagues would not have been integrated. Rodney Harrison, Hines Ward and Jerry Rice were incredible athletes who offer insightful commentary about football. However, criticism of Kaepernick reveals their atrocious ignorance. Harrison argued that Kaepernick’s heart is in the right place, but that he’s “going about it in the wrong way.”
http://theundefeated.com/features/the-courage-of-colin-kaepernick/
Spot On!
I ran into technical difficulties trying to embed this video, so here's the link instead. It's Trevor Noah on Comedy Central discussing Trump's effort to get the black vote.
Hilarious!
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/4vdhn2/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-donald-trump-tries-to-woo-black-voters
Hilarious!
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/4vdhn2/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-donald-trump-tries-to-woo-black-voters
Sunday, September 4, 2016
Saturday, September 3, 2016
Friday, September 2, 2016
Code of Conduct
An excerpt from the Root -
White America’s Definitive Code of Conduct for Black Athletes
And if you don’t follow these rules, you’ll get Kaepernicked.
BY: MICHAEL HARRIOT
Recently, black athletes have faced an enormous amount of scrutiny for their untoward behavior. They have continually sullied the regard and expectations of the virtuous masses of the noble, patriotic public by showing contempt for the spectators, fans and America itself. As such, we have assembled one of the whitest teams since (insert hockey team name here) to create this definitive code of conduct as both an instruction guide and a manual for how black professional athletes should represent themselves, their individual sports and their country.
http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2016/09/white-americas-definitive-code-of-conduct-for-black-athletes/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=theroot&utm_campaign=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content%26
White America’s Definitive Code of Conduct for Black Athletes
And if you don’t follow these rules, you’ll get Kaepernicked.
BY: MICHAEL HARRIOT
Recently, black athletes have faced an enormous amount of scrutiny for their untoward behavior. They have continually sullied the regard and expectations of the virtuous masses of the noble, patriotic public by showing contempt for the spectators, fans and America itself. As such, we have assembled one of the whitest teams since (insert hockey team name here) to create this definitive code of conduct as both an instruction guide and a manual for how black professional athletes should represent themselves, their individual sports and their country.
http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2016/09/white-americas-definitive-code-of-conduct-for-black-athletes/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=theroot&utm_campaign=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content%26
Just in Case You're Interested
An excerpt from Vox -
Donald Trump volunteers are signing a lifelong contract never to criticize him
By Jeff Stein
Sign up to volunteer for Donald Trump’s campaign, and you might be giving up more than you bargained for.
Earlier this week, reporters began poring over the 2,271-word nondisclosure agreement that Trump’s campaign requires its volunteers sign. The forms are extraordinarily broad, virtually prohibiting any volunteers from criticizing Trump or his family for the rest of their lifetimes, according to Rachel Sklar, a lawyer and CNN contributor.
http://www.vox.com/2016/9/2/12769084/donald-trump-volunteers
Donald Trump volunteers are signing a lifelong contract never to criticize him
By Jeff Stein
Sign up to volunteer for Donald Trump’s campaign, and you might be giving up more than you bargained for.
Earlier this week, reporters began poring over the 2,271-word nondisclosure agreement that Trump’s campaign requires its volunteers sign. The forms are extraordinarily broad, virtually prohibiting any volunteers from criticizing Trump or his family for the rest of their lifetimes, according to Rachel Sklar, a lawyer and CNN contributor.
http://www.vox.com/2016/9/2/12769084/donald-trump-volunteers
Thursday, September 1, 2016
Game Day Matter
From Rolling Stone - (Bold is mine)
Racism is much more complex than we like to imagine. It's more than a word; it's a system that is backed up money, politics and the criminal justice system. We live in a country where when media pundits called U.S. swimmer Ryan Lochte, a 32-year-old man, a "kid," for lying about his brotastic experience at the Rio Olympics, but a Cleveland police officer can kill Tamir Race for doing just that – being a kid. A country where Kaepernick is deemed as being unpatriotic, for exercising his constitutional right to freedom of speech, but Dylann Roof can burn the American flag and walk into an A.M.E. church and murder people. A country where a presidential candidate whose slogan is "Make America Great Again," wants to criticize a black man who just wants justice is the epitome of not just hypocrisy, but it's also downright fucking absurd. Black lives seem to matter on game day when America needs to be entertained. The rest of the week, not so much.
http://www.rollingstone.com/sports/what-white-fans-dont-understand-about-black-athletes-w437292?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=daily&utm_campaign=083116_12
Racism is much more complex than we like to imagine. It's more than a word; it's a system that is backed up money, politics and the criminal justice system. We live in a country where when media pundits called U.S. swimmer Ryan Lochte, a 32-year-old man, a "kid," for lying about his brotastic experience at the Rio Olympics, but a Cleveland police officer can kill Tamir Race for doing just that – being a kid. A country where Kaepernick is deemed as being unpatriotic, for exercising his constitutional right to freedom of speech, but Dylann Roof can burn the American flag and walk into an A.M.E. church and murder people. A country where a presidential candidate whose slogan is "Make America Great Again," wants to criticize a black man who just wants justice is the epitome of not just hypocrisy, but it's also downright fucking absurd. Black lives seem to matter on game day when America needs to be entertained. The rest of the week, not so much.
http://www.rollingstone.com/sports/what-white-fans-dont-understand-about-black-athletes-w437292?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=daily&utm_campaign=083116_12
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