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Showing posts from June, 2020

Black History is OUR History

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During this time of racial unrest and tension, I have tried my best to educate and illuminate some of the lesser known parts of Black History that have led us to this place. Everything from Slavery to Systemic Inequality to Redlining, and I myself have learned things that I never knew.  So much of the history of this country, and the world, has been diluted and sanitized to make it palatable.  This history is ugly.  It's raw. It's destructive. It's horrific. And it's time that we know the truth so that we can do better.   With today being Juneteenth, or Emancipation Day, I will start here and collect each post I have written and researched so we can all have a better understanding on how we got here.  What is Juneteenth? PEOPLE were taken from Africa and MADE into slaves. They had families that were ripped apart. Women were forced to breastfeed grown men in the holds of ships after their babies died so they could provide sustenance for the crossing. The things that happ

"Judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character"

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Events over the last 4 years have turned this country into a powder keg of racial tension, and there have been explosions everywhere.  The most recent one, the murder of  George Floyd by 4 White police officers in Minneapolis, has put the nation front and center in terms of racial disparity and unrest.  There have been peaceful protests as well as rioting, and people are at a loss as to what to do.   This is just one in a long line of things that have happened to make my heart bleed.  As the daughter of a Black man, the sister of a Black man, and the mother of a Black man, I am saddened and disappointed and scared because things in this country seem to be getting worse instead of better.   I was born in the North and was subject to my share of racist behavior. It wasn't nearly as overt and often, but it happened. The problem is, I learned later, that I was raised in a "nice" Black family. A Cosby show type of family. A non threatening family that was light skinned enough