I greatly admire Amazon.com for its commitment to getting merchandise to customers at the time guaranteed. I live on an island for much of the year, and even here, books arrive at the appointed time. If not, then Amazon makes it up to customers.
My Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a prime example. The three copies I ordered did not arrive by July 21st, as promised. They did arrive on July 23d. So I get the books for no charge except the $5.97 shipping fee. That means three copies of Harry Potter for just under $2 (yes, two dollars!) per book. Not the $35 list price or the $18-$19 pre-release price of some of the big retailers.
But in dealing with customer service to straighten out a glitch in the initial order, I found myself talking to a customer service person in INDIA. Then when dealing with customer service to report that I had not received my books on the 21st, I found myself talking to a customer service person in THE PHILLIPINES.
On a personal side, I suppose I am benefitting from this outsourcing of jobs from the U.S. to countries with cheaper labor costs. But as an American I am angry that Amazon is paying foreigners to do jobs that Americans would be perfectly willing to do even for minimum wage, which just today went up to $5.85.
Showing posts with label Being American. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Being American. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Poverty
While John McCain's presidential campaign is suffering from a poverty of ideas in which he really believes and that the conservatives he is courting really believe, John Edwards is touring some of the poorest areas of our country and, reminiscent of Bobby Kennedy, reminding us of how too many of us live. His message is about "presidential failure and governmental neglect." Sometimes celebrity, even political celebrity, is a good thing. Check out this site and all the links, which make my point:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12017456
People may poke fun at Edwards, a rich man, focusing so much attention on the poor, but I say: God bless!
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12017456
People may poke fun at Edwards, a rich man, focusing so much attention on the poor, but I say: God bless!
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Urbanworld/VIBE Film Festival
You no doubt know about Sundance and maybe about Tribeca, but if you really care about Black images on the big and small screens, then you should find a way to support this effort, now in its 11th year.
There’s still time this weekend to check out some wonderfully engaging and thought-provoking film at the AMC 34th Street Theater (312 W. 34th St., between 8th and 9th Avenues in Manhattan). In my circles people are constantly complaining about the depiction of Blacks or the absence of Blacks on the screen. This festival showcases independent film that covers the range from serious to silly. Many of the films are about Blacks, but there are also films that cover others on the edges of recognition in this urban environment.
The website for learning about the schedule is: www.urbanworld.org. Some of the board members of the sponsoring organizations are Samuel L. Jackson, Danny Glover, Rosie Perez and Debbie Allen.
Beyond the festival, look for the films. Demand the films!
Here are descriptions of two:
DIVIDED WE FALL
Driven to action by the murder of a turbaned man in her community, a college student drives across America in the aftermath of 9/11 to discover stories that did not make the evening news. From the still-shocked streets of Ground Zero to the desert towns of the American West, Valarie Kaur’s inspiring journey uncovers remarkable stories of hate, violence, fear, and unspeakable loss – until she finds the heart of America halfway around the world.
761st
The 761st Tank Battalion became the first African-American armored unit to fight in WWII. Requested by General George S. Patton, they assisted in heavy combat during the famous Battle of the Bulge. Despite this, they faced racism at home and death overseas, fighting a war for many freedoms they did not enjoy back home in America. This is their story.
There’s still time this weekend to check out some wonderfully engaging and thought-provoking film at the AMC 34th Street Theater (312 W. 34th St., between 8th and 9th Avenues in Manhattan). In my circles people are constantly complaining about the depiction of Blacks or the absence of Blacks on the screen. This festival showcases independent film that covers the range from serious to silly. Many of the films are about Blacks, but there are also films that cover others on the edges of recognition in this urban environment.
The website for learning about the schedule is: www.urbanworld.org. Some of the board members of the sponsoring organizations are Samuel L. Jackson, Danny Glover, Rosie Perez and Debbie Allen.
Beyond the festival, look for the films. Demand the films!
Here are descriptions of two:
DIVIDED WE FALL
Driven to action by the murder of a turbaned man in her community, a college student drives across America in the aftermath of 9/11 to discover stories that did not make the evening news. From the still-shocked streets of Ground Zero to the desert towns of the American West, Valarie Kaur’s inspiring journey uncovers remarkable stories of hate, violence, fear, and unspeakable loss – until she finds the heart of America halfway around the world.
761st
The 761st Tank Battalion became the first African-American armored unit to fight in WWII. Requested by General George S. Patton, they assisted in heavy combat during the famous Battle of the Bulge. Despite this, they faced racism at home and death overseas, fighting a war for many freedoms they did not enjoy back home in America. This is their story.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Disparaging Blackfolks in the Language of Your Choice
Why do so many people feel so free to dehumanize Black people and use racial slurs to promote their own aims? Why does this come so trippingly off the tongue – whether in Germany or China or the United States?
In Canada recently, a Black family purchased a brown leather sofa. Upon its delivery, the 7-year-old inquisitive girl in the family noticed that its color was described as “nigger brown.” Who can make up this stuff? Read the story that ran in the Toronto Star and that is now making its way around cyberspace:
Racial Slur on Sofa Label Stuns Family
http://www.thestar.com/Article/200265
This comes not long after the revelation that a German military training film was told conscripts to imagine that they were shooting Blacks in the Bronx. This is how the Associated Press reported the incident:
“The clip shows an instructor and a soldier in camouflage uniforms in a forest. The instructor tells the soldier, “You are in the Bronx. A black van is stopping in front of you. Three African-Americans are getting out and they are insulting your mother in the worst ways. ... Act.” The soldier fires his machine gun several times and yells an obscenity several times in English. The instructor then tells the soldier to curse even louder.”
Why do we permit ourselves to be such easy targets of racial stereotypes that even an over-the-hill radio jock can casually label a dignified and disciplined team of women basketballers, most of them Black, “nappy-headed hos”?
Whenever people say that if Black people can use such language and convey such attitude a la mode then why can’t people who are not Black, then make it clear that not all Black people permit this. As I said in a discussion at a Society of Professional Journalists meeting a week ago, some people find use of such historically demeaning terms “liberating,” but with me the only thing liberating about such usage in my presence is the liberating of my fist upside someone’s head when they even dare to call me the N word or even a “nappy-headed ho.” Not that I mind the acknowledgment that I wear my hair in the natural style, but that I don’t condone that plus the implication of promiscuity as a default definition of Black womanhood.
Nor do I tolerate hearing kids in my Harlem neighborhood who are not African American casually calling each other “nigger.”
In a recent trial in New York, a defendant – a white guy who’d grown up around Blacks and Latinos – argued that his use of the N word while walloping a Black guy was not indication of a hate crime. He had pronounced the word as “nigga” – a hip hop version of “my brother” or “my friend” or whatever. If he had used “nigger,” then that would have been the measure of racial contempt.
Pity the fool!
But didn’t too many of us open the door to such thinking? This is now global when even someone who can barely speak English and knows nothing of African-American history can feel as free as a Klansman to treat us as scum of the earth.
Back in Canada, the father of the 7-year-old, “explained the origins of the word to daughter Olivia, telling how it was a bad name that blacks were called during the days of slavery in the United States.”
We’d all be so lucky if use of that word had ended in 1865!
In Canada recently, a Black family purchased a brown leather sofa. Upon its delivery, the 7-year-old inquisitive girl in the family noticed that its color was described as “nigger brown.” Who can make up this stuff? Read the story that ran in the Toronto Star and that is now making its way around cyberspace:
Racial Slur on Sofa Label Stuns Family
http://www.thestar.com/Article/200265
This comes not long after the revelation that a German military training film was told conscripts to imagine that they were shooting Blacks in the Bronx. This is how the Associated Press reported the incident:
“The clip shows an instructor and a soldier in camouflage uniforms in a forest. The instructor tells the soldier, “You are in the Bronx. A black van is stopping in front of you. Three African-Americans are getting out and they are insulting your mother in the worst ways. ... Act.” The soldier fires his machine gun several times and yells an obscenity several times in English. The instructor then tells the soldier to curse even louder.”
Why do we permit ourselves to be such easy targets of racial stereotypes that even an over-the-hill radio jock can casually label a dignified and disciplined team of women basketballers, most of them Black, “nappy-headed hos”?
Whenever people say that if Black people can use such language and convey such attitude a la mode then why can’t people who are not Black, then make it clear that not all Black people permit this. As I said in a discussion at a Society of Professional Journalists meeting a week ago, some people find use of such historically demeaning terms “liberating,” but with me the only thing liberating about such usage in my presence is the liberating of my fist upside someone’s head when they even dare to call me the N word or even a “nappy-headed ho.” Not that I mind the acknowledgment that I wear my hair in the natural style, but that I don’t condone that plus the implication of promiscuity as a default definition of Black womanhood.
Nor do I tolerate hearing kids in my Harlem neighborhood who are not African American casually calling each other “nigger.”
In a recent trial in New York, a defendant – a white guy who’d grown up around Blacks and Latinos – argued that his use of the N word while walloping a Black guy was not indication of a hate crime. He had pronounced the word as “nigga” – a hip hop version of “my brother” or “my friend” or whatever. If he had used “nigger,” then that would have been the measure of racial contempt.
Pity the fool!
But didn’t too many of us open the door to such thinking? This is now global when even someone who can barely speak English and knows nothing of African-American history can feel as free as a Klansman to treat us as scum of the earth.
Back in Canada, the father of the 7-year-old, “explained the origins of the word to daughter Olivia, telling how it was a bad name that blacks were called during the days of slavery in the United States.”
We’d all be so lucky if use of that word had ended in 1865!
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Let's Stop This Vicarious Guilt
I read that some Korean Americans are afraid that they will somehow all be tarred with what Seung-Hui Cho did at Virginia Tech earlier this week. One woman said that upon hearing the killer of 32 students and faculty members was Asian, she said something like, "Please don't let him be Korean!"
I know that prayer. I've said it any number of times when something horrendous happens. "Please don't let him [or her] be Black!" I've said.
But I've come to realize that I'm not responsible for evil acts of other Black folks. I feel no racial guilt that a Black man named
Robert Williams apparently raped, tortured and tried to kill a Columbia University student who lives in my neighborhood in Harlem. If all that's been reported about him so far is true, this con is scum. This is how The New York Times reports what the NYPD Police Commissioner has said of what happened after this man forced his way into the student's apartment:
"Over the next 19 hours, [Commissioner Ray] Kelly said, the man tied the woman to her bed with computer cables and taped her mouth closed, raped and sodomized her repeatedly, burned her with hot water and bleach, slit her eyelids with scissors, and force-fed her an overdose of ibuprofen or a similar pain reliever.
"At one point last Saturday afternoon, Mr. Kelly said, the assailant took the woman’s A.T.M. card, withdrew $200 at a bodega on West 141st Street and returned to her apartment. A few hours later, he set fire to the woman’s futon and left her, unconscious, to die, Mr. Kelly said. She woke up to the smell of smoke, used the flames to melt the cable that bound her to the bed frame, and escaped, Mr. Kelly said."
Those of Korean ancestry -- whether citizens or legal residents or visitors -- need feel no special guilt about Cho. Nor should misguided avengers hold them accountable.
But all of US should empathize with Cho's family. Sun-Kyung Cho, his sister and a State Department contractor, said on behalf of the family: "We are humbled by this darkness. We feel hopeless, helpless and lost. This is someone that I grew up with and loved. Now I feel like I didn't know this person. We have always been a close, peaceful and loving family. My brother was quiet and reserved, yet struggled to fit in. We never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence."
I know that prayer. I've said it any number of times when something horrendous happens. "Please don't let him [or her] be Black!" I've said.
But I've come to realize that I'm not responsible for evil acts of other Black folks. I feel no racial guilt that a Black man named
Robert Williams apparently raped, tortured and tried to kill a Columbia University student who lives in my neighborhood in Harlem. If all that's been reported about him so far is true, this con is scum. This is how The New York Times reports what the NYPD Police Commissioner has said of what happened after this man forced his way into the student's apartment:
"Over the next 19 hours, [Commissioner Ray] Kelly said, the man tied the woman to her bed with computer cables and taped her mouth closed, raped and sodomized her repeatedly, burned her with hot water and bleach, slit her eyelids with scissors, and force-fed her an overdose of ibuprofen or a similar pain reliever.
"At one point last Saturday afternoon, Mr. Kelly said, the assailant took the woman’s A.T.M. card, withdrew $200 at a bodega on West 141st Street and returned to her apartment. A few hours later, he set fire to the woman’s futon and left her, unconscious, to die, Mr. Kelly said. She woke up to the smell of smoke, used the flames to melt the cable that bound her to the bed frame, and escaped, Mr. Kelly said."
Those of Korean ancestry -- whether citizens or legal residents or visitors -- need feel no special guilt about Cho. Nor should misguided avengers hold them accountable.
But all of US should empathize with Cho's family. Sun-Kyung Cho, his sister and a State Department contractor, said on behalf of the family: "We are humbled by this darkness. We feel hopeless, helpless and lost. This is someone that I grew up with and loved. Now I feel like I didn't know this person. We have always been a close, peaceful and loving family. My brother was quiet and reserved, yet struggled to fit in. We never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence."
Sunday, April 15, 2007
I'm Happy to Be Nappy
In the US -- as well as elsewhere in the African Diaspora -- Blacks have internalized the White racist notions of worthiness that have been part and parcel of this society since at least the 17th century.
Over time, we've learned that the closer you came to the White measure of normality and beauty, the more worthy you were for acceptance into some parts of mainstream society -- whether as field slave or house slave, mistress or butler or even leader of the Black race. Good hair. High yellow skin color. Proper manners. In elementary school I had big fights with girls who seemed to get a pass because they were the teachers' pets based on such characteristics while, I, an unmistakably nappy-haired brown-skinned girl had to work for everything I sometimes begrudgingly earned from some of those teachers.
When Imus thought he was being funny by characterizing a dignified group of college students as "nappy-headed ho's", he had no idea into what he was tapping. Nor did his core audience, I'm sure. Even this weekend, some of the elites who appeared on his show to talk about politics or their new books, say they never tuned in to the program long enough to know what he was all about. But he obviously counted on his core audience to know what he was about and to yuk it up with him. He miscalulated this time -- and, maybe, as a nation we will be the better for that.
"I did a bad thing, but I'm a good person," Imus keeps telling himself -- and all of US. Maybe he inadvertently did a good thing.
Now White people know that while Black people like me who long ago rejected the perm and are happy to be nappy, there are many others who are struggling with their identity within a US culture that uses terms like "all American" or "girl next door" when the images are of blonde White women -- most of whom are skinny to boot! Whether it is a reflection of liberation or denial, some Black women are now sporting blonde do's. And while ads are more cosmetically subtle than those in the 1950s that pushed bleaching creams for Blacks who wanted to lighten their skin, there is a market for such products even today.
The pain and complexity involved in "nappiness" may have been foreign to many in Imus's audience. BUT, it was the reference to these All-American young women, disciplined scholar-athletes who came close to winning a national championshp after exceeding all pre-season expectations that made it possible for ALL Americans, especially Whites in corporate America, to understand that Imus's version of humor is really cruelty that perpetuates stereotypes and demeans their own daughters. So many television executives and advertisers noted that they were the fathers of daughters!
Now they need to use that heightened sensitivity to take a next step: Pull out of the corporate support for the worst of rap music and rap videos that depict females as sex objects, liberally using the B-word and the H-word while showing young women shaking their booties. Corporate America -- including some entities that yanked their support for Imus In The Morning -- is making huge money from this.
I'll take it as a sign that the US is finally getting it, when corporate America -- led by all those fathers with daughters -- pulls its money from where its sensitivity now dictates and when mainstream media like NBC and Fox and CNN devote as much attention to those who among Black folks have been crusading against the hip-hop filth for at least two decades as they have devoted to asking if Imus is the victim of a double standard.
Over time, we've learned that the closer you came to the White measure of normality and beauty, the more worthy you were for acceptance into some parts of mainstream society -- whether as field slave or house slave, mistress or butler or even leader of the Black race. Good hair. High yellow skin color. Proper manners. In elementary school I had big fights with girls who seemed to get a pass because they were the teachers' pets based on such characteristics while, I, an unmistakably nappy-haired brown-skinned girl had to work for everything I sometimes begrudgingly earned from some of those teachers.
When Imus thought he was being funny by characterizing a dignified group of college students as "nappy-headed ho's", he had no idea into what he was tapping. Nor did his core audience, I'm sure. Even this weekend, some of the elites who appeared on his show to talk about politics or their new books, say they never tuned in to the program long enough to know what he was all about. But he obviously counted on his core audience to know what he was about and to yuk it up with him. He miscalulated this time -- and, maybe, as a nation we will be the better for that.
"I did a bad thing, but I'm a good person," Imus keeps telling himself -- and all of US. Maybe he inadvertently did a good thing.
Now White people know that while Black people like me who long ago rejected the perm and are happy to be nappy, there are many others who are struggling with their identity within a US culture that uses terms like "all American" or "girl next door" when the images are of blonde White women -- most of whom are skinny to boot! Whether it is a reflection of liberation or denial, some Black women are now sporting blonde do's. And while ads are more cosmetically subtle than those in the 1950s that pushed bleaching creams for Blacks who wanted to lighten their skin, there is a market for such products even today.
The pain and complexity involved in "nappiness" may have been foreign to many in Imus's audience. BUT, it was the reference to these All-American young women, disciplined scholar-athletes who came close to winning a national championshp after exceeding all pre-season expectations that made it possible for ALL Americans, especially Whites in corporate America, to understand that Imus's version of humor is really cruelty that perpetuates stereotypes and demeans their own daughters. So many television executives and advertisers noted that they were the fathers of daughters!
Now they need to use that heightened sensitivity to take a next step: Pull out of the corporate support for the worst of rap music and rap videos that depict females as sex objects, liberally using the B-word and the H-word while showing young women shaking their booties. Corporate America -- including some entities that yanked their support for Imus In The Morning -- is making huge money from this.
I'll take it as a sign that the US is finally getting it, when corporate America -- led by all those fathers with daughters -- pulls its money from where its sensitivity now dictates and when mainstream media like NBC and Fox and CNN devote as much attention to those who among Black folks have been crusading against the hip-hop filth for at least two decades as they have devoted to asking if Imus is the victim of a double standard.
April 15: When All Hell Broke Loose….
...not just in baseball (See Red Barber's book by this name), but in US society. Sixty years ago, April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first Black man to play in baseball’s Major League in the modern era. We have to add that “in the modern era” because long before the 20th century, Blacks played professional baseball with White folks, just as Blacks were jockeys in the big-time racing circuits.
He was 28 years old. When he died at age 53, many people said that baseball and the stress of being the first, of being abused initially by not only fans and opposing team players but by his own teammates, of having to ever be the gentleman and not strike back, cut his life short.
Jackie Robinson, No. 42 for the Brooklyn Dodgers, forced the US to deal with its racism. To this day many older Blacks are fans of the Dodgers (now the Los Angeles Dodgers) because of Jackie Robinson.
In honor of his accomplishments on the field, many Major League Baseball players and coachs -- and the NY Mets' manager Willie Randolph -- will wear No. 42 today (Apr. 15).
But to really appreciate Robinson, one must know about the man off the field, the man who challenged the status quo in a segregated Army prior to his baseball career and challenged the economic status quo after his baseball career by helping found a bank for Black people in the 1960s. He was a prominent participant in the 1963 March on Washington. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Robinson to bring yourself up to speed on Robinson if he’s not in your pantheon of people to be admired and whose spirit and courage are worth emulating.
He was 28 years old. When he died at age 53, many people said that baseball and the stress of being the first, of being abused initially by not only fans and opposing team players but by his own teammates, of having to ever be the gentleman and not strike back, cut his life short.
Jackie Robinson, No. 42 for the Brooklyn Dodgers, forced the US to deal with its racism. To this day many older Blacks are fans of the Dodgers (now the Los Angeles Dodgers) because of Jackie Robinson.
In honor of his accomplishments on the field, many Major League Baseball players and coachs -- and the NY Mets' manager Willie Randolph -- will wear No. 42 today (Apr. 15).
But to really appreciate Robinson, one must know about the man off the field, the man who challenged the status quo in a segregated Army prior to his baseball career and challenged the economic status quo after his baseball career by helping found a bank for Black people in the 1960s. He was a prominent participant in the 1963 March on Washington. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Robinson to bring yourself up to speed on Robinson if he’s not in your pantheon of people to be admired and whose spirit and courage are worth emulating.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
This “Blood” Cherokee vs “Black Cherokee Freedmen” Issue Won’t Go Away
The Cherokee Nation, that rump group of Native Americans who are more proud of their White heritage than their Black heritage, voted to expel Blacks from the nation. That means they have to share $$$$ coming to the tribe via US government and gaming enterprises, with fewer people.
Among the many who have spoken up about this is the Congressional Black Caucus, which, according to the Associated Press, is asking the federal government “to weigh in on the legality of a vote by the Cherokee Nation earlier this month to revoke citizenship from descendants of former tribal slaves."
This from the AP: "Saying they were 'shocked and outraged,' more than two dozen members of the Congressional Black Caucus signed a letter to the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs questioning the 'validity, legality, as well as the morality' of the March 3 vote.
"'The black descendant Cherokees can trace their Native American heritage back in many cases for more than a century,' said Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.). 'They are legally a part of the Cherokee Nation through history, precedent, blood and treaty obligations.'”
Read what Mike Shelton, a member of the state legislature in Oklahama, says about how the Cherokee Nation is marching on the wrong trail: http://www.muskogeephoenix.com/opinion/local_story_070192128.html
Among the many who have spoken up about this is the Congressional Black Caucus, which, according to the Associated Press, is asking the federal government “to weigh in on the legality of a vote by the Cherokee Nation earlier this month to revoke citizenship from descendants of former tribal slaves."
This from the AP: "Saying they were 'shocked and outraged,' more than two dozen members of the Congressional Black Caucus signed a letter to the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs questioning the 'validity, legality, as well as the morality' of the March 3 vote.
"'The black descendant Cherokees can trace their Native American heritage back in many cases for more than a century,' said Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.). 'They are legally a part of the Cherokee Nation through history, precedent, blood and treaty obligations.'”
Read what Mike Shelton, a member of the state legislature in Oklahama, says about how the Cherokee Nation is marching on the wrong trail: http://www.muskogeephoenix.com/opinion/local_story_070192128.html
Friday, March 16, 2007
St. Patrick's Day
The united states of us requires effort.
I have heard so many people say that they have no knowledge of what St. Patrick’s Day is all about except that it involves Irish people and drunkenness. There is much more to St. Patrick’s Day than that.
I have heard so many people say that they know nothing about Black History Month because they are not Black. Or they don't understand Chinese New Year because they are not Chinese. Or they ignore Columbus Day because they are not Italian.
I have heard so many people presume that Thanksgiving is about turkeys and football, but don’t realize the religious base for it. Or don’t see a commonality of purpose in celebrating Thanksgiving and Kwanzaa or Easter and Passover.
If the US in the United States are to truly be that, we need to reach beyond our limited concepts of from whence we’ve come. Even if that means rejecting some of that which our parents or teachers have burdened us with.
I have heard too many people say that Christianity is Catholicism and that’s it. As a good and faithful Baptist, I try to explain Protestants to them.
I make a point of expressing my Irishness this time of the year and using the opportunity of the holiday to generate discussions – in pubs no less! – about the connections between Blacks and Irish in this country. The Irish were considered the “niggers” of the British empire and then, after a few decades here, considered themselves to be White. Google the Draft Riots for a start. A lot of people of Irish backgrounds ended up in the antebellum South and a lot of us are their descendants, whether acknowledged or not.
In this nation, with all our resources, there is no excuse for not knowing more about our neighbors and workplace colleagues.
I am proudly Irish this weekend – and am preparing to cook my corn beef-and-cabbage luncheon for friends of any hue and religiosity – after an Irish breakfast at one of the nearby firehouses in Harlem.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
I have heard so many people say that they have no knowledge of what St. Patrick’s Day is all about except that it involves Irish people and drunkenness. There is much more to St. Patrick’s Day than that.
I have heard so many people say that they know nothing about Black History Month because they are not Black. Or they don't understand Chinese New Year because they are not Chinese. Or they ignore Columbus Day because they are not Italian.
I have heard so many people presume that Thanksgiving is about turkeys and football, but don’t realize the religious base for it. Or don’t see a commonality of purpose in celebrating Thanksgiving and Kwanzaa or Easter and Passover.
If the US in the United States are to truly be that, we need to reach beyond our limited concepts of from whence we’ve come. Even if that means rejecting some of that which our parents or teachers have burdened us with.
I have heard too many people say that Christianity is Catholicism and that’s it. As a good and faithful Baptist, I try to explain Protestants to them.
I make a point of expressing my Irishness this time of the year and using the opportunity of the holiday to generate discussions – in pubs no less! – about the connections between Blacks and Irish in this country. The Irish were considered the “niggers” of the British empire and then, after a few decades here, considered themselves to be White. Google the Draft Riots for a start. A lot of people of Irish backgrounds ended up in the antebellum South and a lot of us are their descendants, whether acknowledged or not.
In this nation, with all our resources, there is no excuse for not knowing more about our neighbors and workplace colleagues.
I am proudly Irish this weekend – and am preparing to cook my corn beef-and-cabbage luncheon for friends of any hue and religiosity – after an Irish breakfast at one of the nearby firehouses in Harlem.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
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