Hey D..you never did say what was up with that house you had up on the site for a few days??
That ’country az looking’ house is the house that my mother and all 11 of her siblings were raised in. It’s the house that my Big Daddy added on to room by room with his own hands as his family kept growing. It’s also the house which was the meeting point for the family before we all went to the church for Big Daddy’s funeral back in December 2002.
Oh. Well why didn’t you just say that??
I was using it as my muse for Neva Scaid.
Your moose?
No, muse..it’s what writers tap into for inspiration.
Oh. So you have a lot of fond memories of that house?
I have vague memories of that house, because my grandparents moved out of that house when I was about 7 or 8 years old. I remember there was a rooster that lived behind that house that used to try and peck lil boys. But for my mom and all my aunts and uncles that grew up in that house on Liberty Street in El Dorado, Arkansas it holds millions of memories.
Well what’s up with that sign for the reward for a runaway slave??
That’s where I’m beginning my post from Juneteenth, with the reality of slavery.
Juneteenth? What the hell is that?
It’s a holiday celebrated in the South, especially Texas.
What does it have to do with slavery?
June 19, (Juneteenth) 1865 is when the Emancipation Proclamation was announced in Galveston, Texas..which is about 50 miles south of Houston along the Gulf of Mexico.
But the Emancipation Proclamation was made into law in January of 1863??!!
Exactly! That’s what’s so sad and wild about Juneteenth, although it was signed into law in January of 1863, black folks in the Texas didn’t know about it until 2 ½ years later when Major General Gordon Granger of the Union Army led his troops into the city of Galveston.
D’mn! That’s fk'd up!!
A lot of folks think the Emancipation Proclamation freed all the slaves in America, but that’s not true.
It’s not?
No, it just freed the slaves in the Confederate states and some counties and parishes were excluded.
So are you saying slavery is still legal in America?
No, I’m saying that slavery in America wasn’t abolished until the 13th Amendment in December of 1865. Lincoln wasn’t worried about the oppression of black folks when he signed the Emancipation Proclaimation in 1863, he was just doing what he needed to do to keep the country intact. Lincoln made mention many times of how he considered white folks to be a supreme race to black folks. Black men were just 3/5ths of a white man in the original Constitution and although they may deny it, a lot of white folks STILL believe that black folks are beneath them today.
C’mon mane..ALL white folks aren’t white supremacists!!
I know that….I also know that there are a lot of black folks who are black supremacists, so it goes both ways.
Do you think black folks are supreme to white folks?
I believe what the Bible says.
What’s that?
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male or female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galations 3:28)
What does that mean?
It means that God does not look at our outer shell..He sees us by our heart. I have my prejudices due to personal experiences just like everyone else, but I still strive to keep an open mind and treat everyone equally. There’s a lot of black folks who harbor resentment and hatred against ‘white folks’ due to how they’ve been treated and how their ancestors have been mistreated by white folks. Everybody can love those who love them, but the REAL hard part is having love for those who hate and mistreat you.
You’re serving up that Bible AND that history huh D?? (smiling)
Yeah..I started doing research on that era when I was checking out Ronald Reagan’s history. There’s a lot of black folks who trip on Reagan because he was against affirmative action and pretty much any program geared to help equalize the playing field for black folks.
You mean you’re a Reagan supporter?
I’m just saying I can understand how Reagan would be shortsighted and expound that everybody should be treated equally starting NOW! Ideally, that’s how it SHOULD be, but the problem with Reagan and most conservative white folks (like the ones in Simi Valley, CA where Reagan is buried and where the officers in Rodney King’s trial were found not guilty by a 12-man jury), is that they prefer to act as if history just started today. They disconnect themselves from the years of oppression of black folks in America and instead focus on ‘equal rights’ for all, regardless of race. The social, political, and economical playing field is extremely unbalanced against blacks and the poor, but they prefer to act as if it’s not. Reagan himself was a prime example of a modest American boy growing up in the Midwest to a working class family that worked his way up the chain of command. Reagan wasn’t born into a millionaire movie star family, his dad was a salesmen and Reagan had to work through high school and college.
I didn’t know that.
The other thing about Reagan that makes me more understanding of Reagan’s myopia to the issues of black folks, is the fact that he’s just a few months younger than my Big Daddy. And by actually walking and talking with my Big Daddy, I have a better understanding of how people of that era think.
What do you mean that era?
Folks like Reagan and my Big Daddy were born in 1910..1911..the climate and attitude of America was a lot different then than it is now. Prohibition (no dranks!) lasted from 1919-1933..pretty much all of their teenage years and all the way up until their early 20’s. You ever think how different your life would be if you never had legal access to alcohol in your teenage years and early 20’s??
D’mn! If I didn’t drink, I’d have a lot less things to ask forgiveness for.
Shii..you and d‘mn near everybody else!!. Big Daddy rarely called black folks ‘black’ and I’ve never heard him say African-American, the term he was comfortable with was ‘colored’. They almost got offended if someone called them ‘black’. But now, that terminology has flip-flopped, if you go out and call a black person ‘colored’ in 2004, you’re likely liable to have to fight him.
(laughing) Yeah..a n’ga will clown if a white person called him ‘colored boy’!!
So I guess I’m not tripping on Reagan, cuz my Big Daddy was one of those hardliners himself. He was all for standing up for yourself and taking care of your family. Big Daddy wasn’t about welfare or handouts. Big Daddy just wanted to get out there and work, ‘If you don’t work you don’t eat.’ was his motto, as well as, ‘A man that knows how to work with his hands will never go hungry.’.
That’s all the way real right there.
That’s the benefit of learning from a REAL generation. Real doesn’t fade away, it sticks baby. So just gone and sit back and enjoy the Juneteenth holiday. Put some meat on the grill, sit down and teach your kids something about history and get ready for that Father’s Day serving…
Sounds good to me!
Allready!
