“That Conversation about Race” category archive
Dread Locks 0
Elizabeth Wellington, after noting that the winners of all three major U. S. beauty contests this year are black women, find herself dismayed that the continuing effort to disparage, discourage, and disrespect* black persons’ natural hair. A snippet.
The law, appropriately referred to as the C.R.O.W.N. law, an acronym for Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural hair, passed the California State Senate and is now on its way to the State Assembly. Mitchell introduced it, she said, because she was weary of seeing black children and teenagers — like Buena Vista wrestler Andrew Johnson, whose locks were sheared at the behest of match referee Alan Maloney — humiliated “because their natural hair was deemed unruly or a distraction to others.
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*I think that’s the first time I’ve used that neologism, either verbally written, but somehow it seems appropriate.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
Florida Republicans float a new strategy for reviving the poll tax.
Theft of Labor: The True Southern Tradition 0
My local rag has a long article on sharecropping, including first-hand narratives from persons who grew up in sharecropping families.
Forget the Gone with the Wind propaganda.
Follow the link and learn just how gracious Southern living really was.
Mythreading History 0
In The Roanoke Times, Jeff Thomas takes a scathing look at the myths that white Southerners, particularly Virginians, have created to shield themselves from their history. Here’s a bit:
How did this happen?
Virginia’s ruling class invented a state religion about the myths of Saint Jefferson and General Lee to control the population. The myth and reality are symbiotic. If everything is great, then why change?
Twits on Twitter 0
Martin Longman discusses the permeation.
Aside:
This correlates with the increase in incidents of Trumpling.
“Jackie Robinson Day” 0
Last night, I tuned into ESPN to watch the Phillies play the bad guys of the day New York Mets.
I did not know that Major League Baseball was celebrating “Jackie Robinson Day.”
Every player wore Jackie Robinson’s number, 42 (a number that is otherwise retired from Major League Baseball). In a refreshing change from the normal drivel of the play-by-play and commentary, the telecast included visits to the play booth by Jamie Foxx, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, and Mo Ne Davis, as well as a filmed tribute to her father by Sharon Robinson. In addition, the commentators discussed the contributions of Jackie Robinson to baseball, civil rights, and American society, as well as larger issues regarding the place of African-Americans in baseball and in society.
As I listened to these tributes to one of the bravest men to don a baseball uniform, I could not stem a rising tide of dismay at the overt racism of the current federal administration.