Happy Juneteenth

Here's something interesting for you: Last weekend, the Juneteenth Festival took place. The festival had no alcohol, they even had an anti smoking booth that gave out information on quitting smoking, a booth where one could register to vote alongside various other informative booths. There was gospel music that was being sung by a local church, and various food kiosks were selling plates of food. But the police were EVERYWHERE. They were on bikes, in cars, and walking around. Now, last time I checked, I don't think they need that many police for a small gathering of people listening to Gospel music and eating food. That being said, this is why Juneteenth kind of pisses me off. I love it because I get to see more Black people in my town. I hate it because of the police.

Across town, there was an art festival with alcohol, and a lot of the prices of the artwork were pretty expensive.   I think I saw ONE officer and he was near the beer vendor area.  I think there were more people at the Art Festival than there was at the Junteenth Festival. You'd think there would be more police at the art festival to prevent theft. Nope, they were mostly at the Juneteenth Festival.

This sort of thing reminds me of a conversation on Facebook about profiling.  I asked the following: Why is it that when a bunch of Black people get together to have fun, the police have to show up in droves? Maybe they were making sure nobody stole an $8.00 catfish dinner plate because, you know that food MUST be valuable or something. :p

This was a drug free, alcohol free zone with GOSPEL Music that took place at the local college.  What the hell did they think was going to go on? Were they expecting somebody to say Hallelujah too loud? Did they think we were going to celebrate it wrong?

See this is what gets on my nerves. People in this country like to act brand new when it comes to racial issues and pretend they don't exist. They say things like, "I don't see color," "We're all human," "My (insert relative/friend, or significant other here) is (insert any race other than the so-called majority here) so I/we can't be racist. Talking about it is divisive, and the only way to 'get over it' is to ignore it, just like Morgan Freeman said."

I say that hiding and pretending it doesn't exist is divisive. This country is abysmal when it comes to race relations because hiding from all of it is what started this mess in the first place. They were too busy inventing band-aids to tie people over or keep them from discussing them and dealing with them.  That right there is complete bald faced bullshit.  It's such an easy  cop out to say, "If you don't like it, then LEAVE!"  because I guarantee  if someone told them the same thing when they were discussing an issue that affected them in a negative way, they would be up in arms.  The difference between race and any other issue was that I was born Black and it's the first thing everyone will see no matter what I do, wear or how 'well' I speak. Contrary to popular belief,  I can't change my wardrobe to appear "less black".   If they truly had some love for this country, they would discuss these issues and stop hiding behind everything under the sun in order to justify their privilege to NOT understand what's going on. Maybe it's just me, but I see that as the ultimate form of treason right there.

Happy Juneteenth.