Voolavex

Juneteenth. Not New. June 19, 2020

This was prompted by a Facebook friend’s comment on the sudden embrace of Juneteenth. She is a white woman from KCK.  I am also a white woman from the North East.

My BBFFBF is from KC, Kansas. She has been my family for 45 or so years. I never think of KCK as a white place at all. Funny how that is. She has relatives there and I know or knew most of them.

Whole groups of black people from KCK moved to Los Angeles in the 50’s to work in the aerospace industry.  Her family is just one of many. In those days Los Angeles was redlined and so my KC folks settled in areas where they could enjoy  their friends and their migration to California.  They stayed and prospered  and eventually spread out in the greater Los Angeles area. but this is the history we rarely see.  Black folks kinda’ have to be aware of white history because it can be dangerous not to do so.  White folks – too many – would  like it to be non-existent, but I am fortunate to have been in the company of black people since I was about 12 (thanks Daddy) and so their history is mine too and I  have read and do read all I can to broaden my knowledge of a rich and important part of American and world history.

Those who don’t are really missing the boat. Keep in mind black people – enslaved black people – built this country with their blood, sweat and tears and were not rewarded by freedom for their lives – just another form of slavery. Jim Crow.  And it continues to exist. The headlines remind us daily of just how  separate a white majority would like to exist. I am part of a black family (two families, in fact – my son’s BF and his family are mine as well). I am the richer, the happier and the better for both of these people and their people.

Juneteenth is not new. You would have known about it if you embraced all of American history. And may I add the way in which we have all been made aware of it has been not in celebration but in more violence.  We are sad land.

We no longer are the land of the free nor the home of the brave.

We Didn’t June 7, 2020

When Covid-19 took over the planet we had a rare opportunity to become our best and brightest. We didn’t. We had a chance to stop and really decide – and  and fast – how to save a world where a life changing event had occurred without warning. We didn’t. We did not act together as a species nor did we extend a hand to other hands – all of us panicked and confused and stunned by the same thing. Not as nations or races or religions, but simply as human beings.

We didn’t.

And first among offenders is the United States. A country that in less than four years has shown itself to be corrupt, craven and fake – after all its claims of glory have been quickly deadened by truth.  Pathogens do not have intent, nor forethought. We do; and I think we have missed our chance. This is only my opinion, but the efforts of this country to alleviate the fear and sickness now upon all of us globally has failed miserably. We had a chance to be everything we claimed to be.

We didn’t.

Thought for This Week June 6, 2020

Bought, stolen, chained

Freed, but never free

Spat on, shat on, sat on.

Alive,  but not a life

OH Yes, Black Lives Matter

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