Saturday, May 30, 2020
Cure for Racism?
An excerpt from the NY Times -
Remember, No One Is Coming to Save Us
Eventually, doctors will find a coronavirus vaccine, but black people will continue to wait for a cure for racism.
By Roxane Gay
Eventually, doctors will find a coronavirus vaccine, but black people will continue to wait, despite the futility of hope, for a cure for racism. We will live with the knowledge that a hashtag is not a vaccine for white supremacy. We live with the knowledge that, still, no one is coming to save us. The rest of the world yearns to get back to normal. For black people, normal is the very thing from which we yearn to be free.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/30/opinion/sunday/trump-george-floyd-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare
Why He Took a Knee
An excerpt from the Washington Post -
This is why Colin Kaepernick took a knee
By Sally Jenkins
Two knees. One protesting in the grass, one pressing on the back of a man’s neck. Choose. You have to choose which knee you will defend. There are no half choices; there is no room for indifference. There is only the knee of protest or the knee on the neck.
NFL owners chose the knee on the neck. They did. They may rationalize it as controversy avoidance or respect for the flag or audience mollification or economic strategy or business exigency. But when they collectively ostracized Colin Kaepernick for his protests against police brutality on unarmed black citizens, they chose the wrong knee. They chose the knee on the neck, the knee that pressures, stifles, gags, chokes and silences.
Kaepernick is still so present in the American consciousness that he might as well be playing in the league. Oh, the owners thought they made him disappear with a settlement. But the image of the kneeling, bow-headed Kaepernick becomes newly indicting each time someone is pinned down by a brute in a blue uniform and dies pleading in a street. The owners misidentified the problem, you see. The problem they can’t get rid of isn’t Kaepernick or his knee. It’s themselves. Their own denial, that’s what dogs them.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/05/30/this-is-why-colin-kaepernick-took-knee/
Thursday, May 28, 2020
What a Difference a Color Makes
An excerpt from Salon -
I can't get past the differences between the Minneapolis BLM protest and anti-lockdown protests
In Minneapolis, police tear-gas unarmed protesters opposing racist violence — but armed Trumpers get the red carpet
By AMANDA MARCOTTE
On Memorial Day, four Minneapolis police officers killed a black man named George Floyd. In a video taken by a bystander, one can hear Floyd, who is on the ground and not resisting as an officer named Derek Chauvin kneels on his neck, pleading for his life, saying, "I can't breathe" and moaning in pain. (Chauvin was involved in at least two previous police shootings of civilians.) Onlookers can also be heard begging the police not to kill Floyd, while another cop named Tou Thao just glares at them, indifferent to the gathered crowd's increasing panic. As the cops take Floyd's unconscious body away, one man can be heard yelling, "You just really killed that man, bro."
The video is incredibly disturbing, so it's no surprise that thousands of people hit the streets in protest on Tuesday, breaking lockdown in a city with a rising rate of coronavirus infection to register their outrage.
The vast majority of protesters weren't violent and none were armed. But Minneapolis police showed up ready to rumble. News photos show the cops pouring out of vehicles fully clad in riot gear and as soon as a handful of protesters committed minor acts of property damage and threw some water bottles (the Star Tribune reports that peaceful protesters pleaded with others to stop the vandalism), cops used that as a pretext to shoot tear-gas canisters into the crowd.
Those images are much like the ones we've grown accustomed to in the era of Black Lives Matter protests (though this time with the addition of face masks): Cops in riot gear striding like conquering soldiers through clouds of tear gas, unarmed protesters running in terror and weeping, surreal images of people's faces covered in milk as they try to wash the tear gas from their eyes.
But what I can't get past — and judging from the reactions on social media, I'm not alone — is how wildly different that scene played out compared to the astroturf anti-lockdown protests staged in various state capitals across the country over the past month or so.
https://www.salon.com/2020/05/27/i-cant-get-past-the-differences-between-the-minneapolis-blm-protest-and-anti-lockdown-protests/
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
Oh God! It Happened Again.
If you’re unbothered or mildly bothered by the 1st knee, but outraged by the 2nd, then, in my father’s words, you’re “more devoted to order than to justice.” And more passionate about an anthem that supposedly symbolizes freedom than you are about a Black man’s freedom to live. pic.twitter.com/kxpVOEeTNR
— Be A King (@BerniceKing) May 26, 2020
Sunday, May 24, 2020
Black History is American History - Memorial Day
An excerpt from Time -
The Overlooked Black History of Memorial Day
BY OLIVIA B. WAXMAN
The Overlooked Black History of Memorial Day
BY OLIVIA B. WAXMAN
Nowadays, Memorial Day honors veterans of all wars, but its roots are in America’s deadliest conflict, the Civil War. Approximately 620,000 soldiers died, about two-thirds from disease.
The work of honoring the dead began right away all over the country, and several American towns claim to be the birthplace of Memorial Day. Researchers have traced the earliest annual commemoration to women who laid flowers on soldiers’ graves in the Civil War hospital town of Columbus, Miss., in April 1866. But historians like the Pulitzer Prize winner David Blight have tried to raise awareness of freed slaves who decorated soldiers’ graves a year earlier, to make sure their story gets told too.
According to Blight’s 2001 book Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, a commemoration organized by freed slaves and some white missionaries took place on May 1, 1865, in Charleston, S.C., at a former planters’ racetrack where Confederates held captured Union soldiers during the last year of the war. At least 257 prisoners died, many of disease, and were buried in unmarked graves, so black residents of Charleston decided to give them a proper burial.
In the approximately 10 days leading up to the event, roughly two dozen African American Charlestonians reorganized the graves into rows and built a 10-foot-tall white fence around them. An archway overhead spelled out “Martyrs of the Race Course” in black letters.
About 10,000 people, mostly black residents, participated in the May 1 tribute, according to coverage back then in the Charleston Daily Courier and the New York Tribune. Starting at 9 a.m., about 3,000 black schoolchildren paraded around the race track holding roses and singing the Union song “John Brown’s Body,” and were followed by adults representing aid societies for freed black men and women. Black pastors delivered sermons and led attendees in prayer and in the singing of spirituals, and there were picnics. James Redpath, the white director of freedman’s education in the region, organized about 30 speeches by Union officers, missionaries and black ministers. Participants sang patriotic songs like “America” and “We’ll Rally around the Flag” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.” In the afternoon, three white and black Union regiments marched around the graves and staged a drill.
The New York Tribune described the tribute as “a procession of friends and mourners as South Carolina and the United States never saw before.” The gravesites looked like a “one mass of flowers” and “the breeze wafted the sweet perfumes from them” and “tears of joy” were shed.
https://time.com/5836444/black-memorial-day/
HBCU Love
An excerpt from The Undefeated -
My family is rooted in black colleges and now I am, too
I found my passion as a journalist at Hampton University
BY RANDALL C. WILLIAMS
My entire family is rooted in historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs).
When my family could attend college, my grandparents flocked to North Carolina Central University, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and Fayetteville State University. My parents followed suit, attending Hampton University and N.C. A&T. That left the HBCU legacy up to me. And after attending predominantly white schools for all of K-12, I decided it was time for a breath of fresh air.
I followed my father’s footsteps to Hampton, and four years later, I can finally say that I understand the HBCU experience. It means connecting with young black folks from all around the world, blossoming, creating memories that will last a lifetime and building foundational steps for their desired profession.
https://theundefeated.com/features/my-family-is-rooted-in-black-colleges-and-now-i-am-too/
My family is rooted in black colleges and now I am, too
I found my passion as a journalist at Hampton University
BY RANDALL C. WILLIAMS
My entire family is rooted in historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs).
When my family could attend college, my grandparents flocked to North Carolina Central University, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and Fayetteville State University. My parents followed suit, attending Hampton University and N.C. A&T. That left the HBCU legacy up to me. And after attending predominantly white schools for all of K-12, I decided it was time for a breath of fresh air.
I followed my father’s footsteps to Hampton, and four years later, I can finally say that I understand the HBCU experience. It means connecting with young black folks from all around the world, blossoming, creating memories that will last a lifetime and building foundational steps for their desired profession.
https://theundefeated.com/features/my-family-is-rooted-in-black-colleges-and-now-i-am-too/
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
Dad Advice
From Upworthy -
Man whose dad walked out when he was 12 shares his own fatherly wisdom 'Dad, How Do I?' channel
by Annie Reneau
Rob Kenney's dad left his family when he was 12. One of eight kids, Kenney went to live with his older brother when he was 14, spending his teenage and young adult years without a father to guide him.
Now a father of two grown children himself, Kenney is offering others the fatherly wisdom and skills he had to gain on his own. His YouTube channel "Dad, How Do I?" shares videos on everyday practical things most people might ask their dad like the proper way to tie a tie, how to unclog a sink and how to check the car oil. Since it was launched April 1, the channel has exploded in popularity.
https://www.upworthy.com/man-whose-dad-walked-out-when-he-was-12-shares-his-own-fatherly-wisdom-dad-how-do-i-channel
Man whose dad walked out when he was 12 shares his own fatherly wisdom 'Dad, How Do I?' channel
by Annie Reneau
Rob Kenney's dad left his family when he was 12. One of eight kids, Kenney went to live with his older brother when he was 14, spending his teenage and young adult years without a father to guide him.
Now a father of two grown children himself, Kenney is offering others the fatherly wisdom and skills he had to gain on his own. His YouTube channel "Dad, How Do I?" shares videos on everyday practical things most people might ask their dad like the proper way to tie a tie, how to unclog a sink and how to check the car oil. Since it was launched April 1, the channel has exploded in popularity.
https://www.upworthy.com/man-whose-dad-walked-out-when-he-was-12-shares-his-own-fatherly-wisdom-dad-how-do-i-channel
Saturday, May 16, 2020
Key Lime Pound Cake Recipe
From Good Housekeeping -
This Key Lime Pound Cake Is Better Than Pie
Sweet and tart in the best of ways.
BY CANDACE BRAUN DAVISON
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/food-recipes/dessert/a32476677/key-lime-pound-cake-recipe/
This Key Lime Pound Cake Is Better Than Pie
Sweet and tart in the best of ways.
BY CANDACE BRAUN DAVISON
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/food-recipes/dessert/a32476677/key-lime-pound-cake-recipe/
Friday, May 15, 2020
Favorite Zoom Meeting EVER!
Still having the company meetings online. pic.twitter.com/aR3LfuSdKl— Andrew Cotter (@MrAndrewCotter) May 11, 2020
We Could Learn From Them, But We Won't
An excerpt from the New Yorker -
What African Nations Are Teaching the West About Fighting the Coronavirus
By Jina Moore
n early March, Ingrid Gercama left her home in the Netherlands and flew to war-torn South Sudan. An applied-research anthropologist with a special interest in epidemics, she had spent time on the African continent during a public-health emergency before, remaining in Liberia, in 2014, during that country’s Ebola outbreak. When she landed at the frill-free airport in South Sudan’s capital of Juba, she was taken to a separate screening area, the shape and size of a shipping container, where her temperature was recorded by government health workers, along with her hotel address and her local telephone number. Gercama was asked a series of questions about her travel and health, she recalled, including whether she had recently come into contact with a bat. The screening area’s walls were covered with posters about covid-19 and its symptoms, and she was ushered into the country past a banner explaining the disease and offering a telephone number for a national coronavirus hotline, which she was to call if she developed a fever. She had to wash her hands once to get into the screening area, and again when she left.
Much of what Gercama encountered at the airport had been designed to prevent Ebola. Since 2018, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan’s neighbor to the southwest, has been struggling with the disease. But local public-health officials’ quick repurposing of Ebola protocols and infrastructure impressed Gercama, as did the work of rapid-response teams, whom she twice witnessed respond to suspected coronavirus cases during the week she spent in the country. She left South Sudan on March 19th, a few days after the country began quarantining arriving passengers, and a few days before they stopped international flights altogether. From Juba, she flew through Stockholm, where no one asked her where she had been nor recorded her temperature, and landed back in Amsterdam, where, again, she was not questioned about her travel history or health. When she passed through passport control, she found no leaflets, no covid-19 awareness banners, no hotline. “They didn’t even tell me to self-isolate,” Gercama told me. “I did so because I have common sense.”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-african-nations-are-teaching-the-west-about-fighting-the-coronavirus
What African Nations Are Teaching the West About Fighting the Coronavirus
By Jina Moore
n early March, Ingrid Gercama left her home in the Netherlands and flew to war-torn South Sudan. An applied-research anthropologist with a special interest in epidemics, she had spent time on the African continent during a public-health emergency before, remaining in Liberia, in 2014, during that country’s Ebola outbreak. When she landed at the frill-free airport in South Sudan’s capital of Juba, she was taken to a separate screening area, the shape and size of a shipping container, where her temperature was recorded by government health workers, along with her hotel address and her local telephone number. Gercama was asked a series of questions about her travel and health, she recalled, including whether she had recently come into contact with a bat. The screening area’s walls were covered with posters about covid-19 and its symptoms, and she was ushered into the country past a banner explaining the disease and offering a telephone number for a national coronavirus hotline, which she was to call if she developed a fever. She had to wash her hands once to get into the screening area, and again when she left.
Much of what Gercama encountered at the airport had been designed to prevent Ebola. Since 2018, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan’s neighbor to the southwest, has been struggling with the disease. But local public-health officials’ quick repurposing of Ebola protocols and infrastructure impressed Gercama, as did the work of rapid-response teams, whom she twice witnessed respond to suspected coronavirus cases during the week she spent in the country. She left South Sudan on March 19th, a few days after the country began quarantining arriving passengers, and a few days before they stopped international flights altogether. From Juba, she flew through Stockholm, where no one asked her where she had been nor recorded her temperature, and landed back in Amsterdam, where, again, she was not questioned about her travel history or health. When she passed through passport control, she found no leaflets, no covid-19 awareness banners, no hotline. “They didn’t even tell me to self-isolate,” Gercama told me. “I did so because I have common sense.”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-african-nations-are-teaching-the-west-about-fighting-the-coronavirus
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)