Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Too Woke to Dream

Being black (and a woman) in America
Requires an exhausting level of hypervigilance.
So much so, that the mere act of survival,
Becomes success enough.

So we cautiously stay in our lanes,
Instead of venturing down roads less traveled.
Work just as hard to keep roofs over our heads,
As others work to shatter glass ceilings.
And settle for small corners of sunlight
Instead of shooting for the stars.

Because having to always stay woke,
Can make it is impossible to dream.

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Like a good neighbor

I recently joined Nextdoor, a social network for neighborhoods. And while I initially thought it would just be an easy way to share resources and information with my neighbors, an unimagined benefit of joining has been the unique insights it has provided about the views, opinions and priorities of the people living around me.

In general, the majority of the exchanges in my Nextdoor circle—which encompasses my neighborhood and most of the uptown neighborhoods surrounding us—involve maintenance advice and recommendations, lost and found pet alerts, and info about upcoming community events.

While these discussions and posts demonstrate a general desire to be good neighbors, some discussions and posts are insighful for other reasons. Examples of these include:

-A rescue effort and veterinarian fund for an injured stray dog someone spotted on the Jeff Davis neutral ground. (To date, the dog has received treatment and has several people ready to adopt or foster him)

-A lively debate about which fruit trees the possums in our neighborhood have taken a liking to. (Grapefruit seems to be a popular choice)

-A heated discussion about how certain people and groups complain about not having jobs & opportunities, but are just too lazy to help themselves. (You know who you are, so I'll just skip the fingerpointing and name calling)

-Another heated discussion about how most of the native New Orleanians complaining about neighborhood gentrification were either too lazy or stupid to buy a home before the post-Katrina boom. (Unfortunately, no one has started a discussion thread to explain how we managed to create a robust, service-based tourism economy given how many lazy residents we must have had before Katrina)

-General posts about municipal issues, like the recent garbage can replacement project, that confirm the extent to which racist snowflakes and black politicians are destroying the city. (I suspect the reason that no one is ever willing to provide names and evidentiary details is due to city's litigious reputation)

-Heavy-hearted exchanges about how those hateful "social justice warriors" (SJW), in particular the ones who hate white supremacy monuments, have really changed the city and made some people want to leave. (FYI, while many of you SJWs may think D.A. Cannizzaro is the biggest threat to personal freedom, with his fake subpoenas and fondness for jailing witnesses and victims, I've learned that the distinction goes to your fellow SJW, Malcolm Suber)

-Numerous alerts about black cats sitting on people's steps, which I assume are for the benefit of our Wiccan, Vodun/Voodoo and superstitious neighbors.

I've learn so much about my neighbors views and opinions, that I'm eager to learn more about their households, in particular what they'll be selling when they have all those moving sales. And like a good neighbor, I want their relocation efforts to be successful, so I won't even quibble about the prices.

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

White Supremacy Bingo

Gotta love how white people sift through tens of thousands of news stories to find ones that provide confirmation bias, and give random reasons to vilify and attack blacks and Latinos, along with any groups or institutions they may be associated with?

Does social media have a secret white supremacy bingo game where you have to fill in the squares by being able to associate news reports with white supremacy trigger topics like quotas, BLM, immigration and Obama?

Just asking for a friend who might want to play if there's prize money involved.