Comments

1

No relation to Scooby...gave me a chuckle. Thanks, Jasmyne.

2

Today is the 49th anniversary of the break-in to Democratic National Committee at the Watergate office complex by Nixon operatives in 1972.

3

That's your well-regulated militia, America: making pipe bombs on a Wednesday with your 1st grader Granddaughter.

4

@3 what part of SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED do you not understand?!?!?!?

8

@6 - Indeed. It's not just a "NIMBY" complaint any more.

10

Tis the well rotted feces
of endangered species
Mixed in with some hay
It's watered and blended
The largest chunks rendered
and them we just let it lay
After a week or two
it doesn't look or smell like poo
but it needs to be aerated
so we turn it and mix it
in order to fix it
and enjoy the mess we created.

William Shakespoo
Much Apoo About Composting
Act Poo Scene Poo

11

Juneteenth is a federal holiday and yet:

NO legislation has been passed to secure voting rights (the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act).

NO legislation has been passed to address police murdering Black people - not the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, not the BREATHE Act (which hasn't even been introduced in either chamber of congress), nothing regarding ending qualified immunity, etc.

NOTHING has been done to truly investigate, indict, prosecute, etc. the sitting members of congress who enabled, supported, and participated in the insurrection on 1/6; voted against Biden winning the presidential election; etc.

So while it's so great that federal employees are guaranteed another paid holiday (a holiday about which schools in all states that are passing legislation against teaching anything about racism or race in general in this country will not be taught what it is or why it exists), nothing has been done to improve or change the very obscene white supremacist policies in place that are being strengthened by state legislatures nationwide.

12

I'll take another national holiday, we need more of those. We urgently need another one on voting day though.

13

@12:

I wish we had one designated Federal Holiday every month. It's pretty sparse between Presidents Day in February and July 4th - Memorial Day excepted.

16

@15
And hope the Dems pick up the retiring GOP seat in PA.
@10 for the win! Especially the rhyme scheme!!!

18

Give is a holiday and then make it illegal to tell children what it’s about

19

Clarence Thomas voted for the continuation of Obamacare? Holy shit! Excuse me for a moment while I go check to see it it's raining frogs.

I grew up in the South in the 50s and 60s, and I never, ever heard of Juneteenth. I was like...June what? It wasn't until I worked for a couple of years in Galveston in the mid-80s that I got informed about it. Galveston has a sizable African-American community, and Juneteenth was/is a big deal there. Now, it's a thing everywhere which is good (because anything that celebrates what Black folk have brought to our American Quilt is a good thing), but it gives me pause that something that happened in Texas will become a national holiday.

Jasmyne, my dear. Looks like you're going to have to wait a long time for those reparations because there are many in power who believe they are not responsible for what their great-great-great-great grandpappy did or did not do. And we both know that if it happens, it'll never be enough - not enough to change someone's standard-of-living. I'm guessing at most it'd be enough for maybe a week in Europe or parts of Asia or three days in Africa (because African vacations are very expensive).

20

@11: It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

21

@20
"Light a candle, curse the glare"
Or how about...
"One way or another, this darkness got to give"

h/t Robert Hunter...

22

19: “Galveston has a sizable African-American community, and Juneteenth was/is a big deal there… but it gives me pause that something that happened in Texas will become a national holiday.”

You do realize Juneteenth originated in Galveston, right?

23

@19: Yes. I meant to infer that it was not only the first time I heard about its origins but also the first time I saw it celebrated.

24

@22: See above.

26

The only reason Juneteenth originated in Texas is because Texas waited two and a half years AFTER the Emancipation Proclamation to tell enslaved Black people in Texas that slavery was over. It is something that originated in Texas, but it is celebrated by Black people nationwide because it is the "official" date of the end of slavery. Of course once all enslaved people were freed this country just did everything they could to keep Black people in a constant state of suffering, because they could no longer be enslaved.

Segregation, Jim Crow, redlining, sundown towns, poll taxes and tests (illegal, both), destroying successful Black communities, the war on drugs (even though middle class white people do more drugs than any other demographic in this country), bias, defunding, and destruction of education - and never even coming close to fully realizing Brown v. Board of Education, the prison industrial complex, etc.

Discrimination from birth to death, ruled by white supremacist ideology, steeped in all policy and enforced by terrorism and murder.

And today, with white supremacists so desperate to keep things the way they want them, they're deeply entranced in the school to prison pipeline, the prison industrial complex, allowing cops to murder Black people any time and any place with no repercussions, passing legislation to keep Black people from voting and to keep Black votes from counting, passing legislation to erase the entire history of this country (because if you're not teaching anything about race or racism, there is no American history that can be taught as all American history is Black history).

I'm fairly sure that if Texas had had its way, enslaved Black people in Texas would have remained enslaved forever and never been told they had been freed.


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