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angelfirenzeI came across a statement somewhere a couple of days ago that stated that the Irish are the Black people of Europe, which I readily understood. They might call themselves fully white here in America, but not elsewhere.
I remember reading something some years ago where a Black man visited western Ireland in the eighteenth or nineteenth century and found that the Irish Gaelic (as opposed to Scottish) was the same as the unnamed language he spoke. That, to me, is beautiful.
What's not beautiful is the Jim Crow v2.0 going on in Netanyahu's right wing Israel. They even have a sundown rule for the Palestinians, which is just sick.
I HATE the subjugation of any and everyone, it's ugly and vicious and the world at its worse.
When we marched in Washington during the George W. Bush (which reminds me: Barbara Bush, Alav Ashalom and formerly extremely vital George H.W. may very well die of a broken heart now and I wish their family such peace right now) years, there were soldiers holding the Israeli flag, all five of them, against our hundreds chanting 'Viva Palestinia!'
I wanted to be a Marine one day, but my love doesn't make me blind, deaf (I actually think that would allow me to 'see' even more if how we treat each other) and dumb (being stupid, not speechless) to the harm done when people put their own history of prejudice and dehumanization over that of anyone else going through the same thing.
Nobody, honestly, knows that after WWII was over, ethnic Germans in Eastern Europe were slaughtered and raped wholesale. And, yes, that does include children.
But nobody talks about that. Like learning what happened to Emmett Till in seventh grade from my Black substitute teacher (which I would never have learned about from my white teacher who was on maternity leave), I made the mistake of researching Jim Crow, HaShoah (The Catastrophe), and the Klan and gave myself a full-on phobia of both Hitler and the KKK.
Those phobias persist to this day and the worst part is that they're entirely grounded in a reality we see every day.
BUT, to be fair, everyone is afraid of the D, but I experience so much kindness every day. I have a hard time being paranoid about this city.
When horrible crimes occur nearby, yes, I become very externally defensive (I have a Swiss Army knife and carry it daily), but it doesn’t make me want to move somewhere else.
I'm a Detroiter, it's who I am, and the idea of not living in the city I was born in is not something I can easily entertain.
#AKON’s Pan-Africanism is ENTIRELY understandable and maybe one day I might be driven to that extreme but, for now, I reserve judgment about whether Black America is a lost cause.
Yes, I'm converting to Reconstructionist Judaism; it doesn't mean I blindly agree with what Middle Eastern Jews are doing right now.
And I have that right.
L’chaim,
Me.
I remember reading something some years ago where a Black man visited western Ireland in the eighteenth or nineteenth century and found that the Irish Gaelic (as opposed to Scottish) was the same as the unnamed language he spoke. That, to me, is beautiful.
What's not beautiful is the Jim Crow v2.0 going on in Netanyahu's right wing Israel. They even have a sundown rule for the Palestinians, which is just sick.
I HATE the subjugation of any and everyone, it's ugly and vicious and the world at its worse.
When we marched in Washington during the George W. Bush (which reminds me: Barbara Bush, Alav Ashalom and formerly extremely vital George H.W. may very well die of a broken heart now and I wish their family such peace right now) years, there were soldiers holding the Israeli flag, all five of them, against our hundreds chanting 'Viva Palestinia!'
I wanted to be a Marine one day, but my love doesn't make me blind, deaf (I actually think that would allow me to 'see' even more if how we treat each other) and dumb (being stupid, not speechless) to the harm done when people put their own history of prejudice and dehumanization over that of anyone else going through the same thing.
Nobody, honestly, knows that after WWII was over, ethnic Germans in Eastern Europe were slaughtered and raped wholesale. And, yes, that does include children.
But nobody talks about that. Like learning what happened to Emmett Till in seventh grade from my Black substitute teacher (which I would never have learned about from my white teacher who was on maternity leave), I made the mistake of researching Jim Crow, HaShoah (The Catastrophe), and the Klan and gave myself a full-on phobia of both Hitler and the KKK.
Those phobias persist to this day and the worst part is that they're entirely grounded in a reality we see every day.
BUT, to be fair, everyone is afraid of the D, but I experience so much kindness every day. I have a hard time being paranoid about this city.
When horrible crimes occur nearby, yes, I become very externally defensive (I have a Swiss Army knife and carry it daily), but it doesn’t make me want to move somewhere else.
I'm a Detroiter, it's who I am, and the idea of not living in the city I was born in is not something I can easily entertain.
#AKON’s Pan-Africanism is ENTIRELY understandable and maybe one day I might be driven to that extreme but, for now, I reserve judgment about whether Black America is a lost cause.
Yes, I'm converting to Reconstructionist Judaism; it doesn't mean I blindly agree with what Middle Eastern Jews are doing right now.
And I have that right.
L’chaim,
Me.
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