Thank you for your honest and descriptive writing on this tragic truth. I hope Juneteenth evolves into a day of solemn reflection and memorial to those who were used, abused, killed. It’s not a day of celebration as our white fragility would prefer, to distract from our savagery and disgrace. 😖
OMG!! It was so difficult reading this. Like the song Strange Fruit.
All the comments - the dusky people who are able to survive in the heat of the south. With all the awful things that are happening in Texas today, it truly seems that the old attitudes still rule that state.
"Twenty-Acres and A Mule." Trying to cheat them out of half their acreage? Maybe they wanted to go halfsies on the land while charging them for Share Cropping. So, leaving them what? A Third?
That violence peaked After Slavery does not surprise me. These Emancipated Enslaved People lost their Property Status/Value seemingly overnight. White plantation owners went from having the Free Labor of "Non-People" to being "surrounded by" a semi-protected class of individuals that they, the Plantation Owners, were no longer allowed to rape-breed, regard as cattle on their ledgers and work to death.
But things are better now... And what is this?
Lady Lindz
Racism does exist, but it’s not white against black. It’s black against white now. Roles have reversed Black people are using racism as a weapon against white people and have been for quite some time.
Found that in my inbox today. Really. Things just that steep? Puhleeze.
You know how white men are going spare and insisting that they are being CENSORED when they air their stodgy, pathetic, reactionary political views? I think they are hung up on the fact that people disagree with them. When someone counters what they are saying they decide that is CENSORSHIP. They need to look up the Definition of Censorship. It's not someone listening to your blather and then telling you you're wrong (or they think you're an idiot).
Those swamp pictures remind me of a woman who says she's not racist, sharing something some racists were saying about Jim Crow and Civil Rights and the Post Slavery Era. Hell, during slavery, too. But these men she was quoting were in their sixties talking about all the Blacks Who Had Been Lynched. That there were "A lot of N8&$5rs In That Swamp. A lot of N*&$6s In That Swamp."
She says it like she's making a point. And she's making more of a point than she thinks as the world rolls off her tongue. One white woman speaking to another about white men of recent generations murdering Black People...
Pathetic.
Ah, yes, "Moral Force." When the threats don't work, get the whips out. Oh, sorry, the switches. Like the ones you use on recalcitrant children. Whip Them Former, No-Longer, Jumped Up Slaves. Gotta get those crops in.
Oh, my, the idleness burden of no longer enslaved Negroes on the good, hard-working whites. No government support for these selfish slackers... A hundred fifty+ years later, "Welfare Queens,"
"...changing obligation to work without stipulated wages, to an obligation to work for such reasonable wages as may be mutually agreed upon."
How careful they were in their words about letting those 'Lazy Negroes with their heads turned by Freedom' think they were going to inherit American Citizenship, Personhood (partial) and a right to a Life of Ease and Comfort where the money rolled in off of other people's backs. Offensive concept that; people being worked for nothing while others profited from their labors...
Ah, 'peonage by mutual consent.' Who doesn't want that!? Sign Me Up, Earl!
It might be better to promote Juneteenth as both a Celebration of the End of Slavery as well as a recognizing of The Humanity of Black People and a somber day of Remembrance for the pain and misery of those who endured Slavery, as well as those who never lived to See or Hear about Freedom. And as Memorial to those who were murdered by people who found the Freedom of The Formerly Enslaved as offensive and threatening.
Juneteenth can be whatever Black Americans choose to make it. No streamers, party plates or fireworks can conceal the Fact of the Day. The fact that so many white people today resist Juneteenth outright is telling in itself. You know, pathetically telling...
So much history has been conveniently transformed by Hallmark
Thank you for your honest and descriptive writing on this tragic truth. I hope Juneteenth evolves into a day of solemn reflection and memorial to those who were used, abused, killed. It’s not a day of celebration as our white fragility would prefer, to distract from our savagery and disgrace. 😖
OMG!! It was so difficult reading this. Like the song Strange Fruit.
All the comments - the dusky people who are able to survive in the heat of the south. With all the awful things that are happening in Texas today, it truly seems that the old attitudes still rule that state.
"Twenty-Acres and A Mule." Trying to cheat them out of half their acreage? Maybe they wanted to go halfsies on the land while charging them for Share Cropping. So, leaving them what? A Third?
That violence peaked After Slavery does not surprise me. These Emancipated Enslaved People lost their Property Status/Value seemingly overnight. White plantation owners went from having the Free Labor of "Non-People" to being "surrounded by" a semi-protected class of individuals that they, the Plantation Owners, were no longer allowed to rape-breed, regard as cattle on their ledgers and work to death.
But things are better now... And what is this?
Lady Lindz
Racism does exist, but it’s not white against black. It’s black against white now. Roles have reversed Black people are using racism as a weapon against white people and have been for quite some time.
Found that in my inbox today. Really. Things just that steep? Puhleeze.
You know how white men are going spare and insisting that they are being CENSORED when they air their stodgy, pathetic, reactionary political views? I think they are hung up on the fact that people disagree with them. When someone counters what they are saying they decide that is CENSORSHIP. They need to look up the Definition of Censorship. It's not someone listening to your blather and then telling you you're wrong (or they think you're an idiot).
Those swamp pictures remind me of a woman who says she's not racist, sharing something some racists were saying about Jim Crow and Civil Rights and the Post Slavery Era. Hell, during slavery, too. But these men she was quoting were in their sixties talking about all the Blacks Who Had Been Lynched. That there were "A lot of N8&$5rs In That Swamp. A lot of N*&$6s In That Swamp."
She says it like she's making a point. And she's making more of a point than she thinks as the world rolls off her tongue. One white woman speaking to another about white men of recent generations murdering Black People...
Pathetic.
Ah, yes, "Moral Force." When the threats don't work, get the whips out. Oh, sorry, the switches. Like the ones you use on recalcitrant children. Whip Them Former, No-Longer, Jumped Up Slaves. Gotta get those crops in.
Oh, my, the idleness burden of no longer enslaved Negroes on the good, hard-working whites. No government support for these selfish slackers... A hundred fifty+ years later, "Welfare Queens,"
"...changing obligation to work without stipulated wages, to an obligation to work for such reasonable wages as may be mutually agreed upon."
How careful they were in their words about letting those 'Lazy Negroes with their heads turned by Freedom' think they were going to inherit American Citizenship, Personhood (partial) and a right to a Life of Ease and Comfort where the money rolled in off of other people's backs. Offensive concept that; people being worked for nothing while others profited from their labors...
Ah, 'peonage by mutual consent.' Who doesn't want that!? Sign Me Up, Earl!
It might be better to promote Juneteenth as both a Celebration of the End of Slavery as well as a recognizing of The Humanity of Black People and a somber day of Remembrance for the pain and misery of those who endured Slavery, as well as those who never lived to See or Hear about Freedom. And as Memorial to those who were murdered by people who found the Freedom of The Formerly Enslaved as offensive and threatening.
Juneteenth can be whatever Black Americans choose to make it. No streamers, party plates or fireworks can conceal the Fact of the Day. The fact that so many white people today resist Juneteenth outright is telling in itself. You know, pathetically telling...