Hello Mirror On America!
I tried to go through an entire week without internet connection, but I couldn't do it. Found it by accident - I'm technologically challenged, so I had no idea you could connect to the internet through a telephone. I was playing with my niece's Blackberry, and saw the internet icon, and found myself on Mirror On America! It was so good to see this place..LOL
Well, I'm going to say that Orlando is the biggest touristy place outside of Las Vegas in America. And, boy are they scamming you, everywhere you go. Disney and Universal are getting over like fat rats, and the consumers are endless pieces of cheese.
I'd like to give a shout out to the women of Delta Sigma Theta Sororty, Inc. I can't tell you the little bursts of pride I got as I saw groups of Delta women over the past week. There's something about seeing those beautiful Black women, spanning generations, that just made me smile. Though I am not one, I come from a family of Delta women, and seeing red and white all over Orlando was terrific.
I spent the better part of this afternoon in the airport, waiting for my evening flight, having discussions with two 18 year old Black men, both family. It was interesting. The three of us, plus an elderly cousin who was knitting, surrounded by White folks. As you can already surmise, it got hilarious.
One of the young men began quoting Huey, yes, Huey. I knew what he was doing, but I played along anyway. You know that folks wanted to move, but they couldn't?
We waxed philosophical on:
Barack Obama
Ronald Reagan as the Devil
Michelle Obama
Inter-racial dating
Colin Powell vs. Condi Rice
Arab vs. European enslavement of Africans
Conspiracy theories
Malcolm vs. Martin
I was so proud of the young men, considering we know how Young Black Men are denigrated in this society. I loved my nephew's diatribe to me about forcing him to go to the 'American' Pavillion at Epcot and listen to the 25 minute flag-waving ' I love America' history lesson. Yes, I understood every word he said against it, after all, my sister and I have been the main ones giving him the ' supplemental' history books, but sometimes you don't think they're listening, and then, WHAM, you realize that they do read; they do listen. And, it made me proud. Some of our youth have their heads on straight, and we should give them credit.
When we were going to board the plane, my elderly cousin shook her head.
" You should be ashamed of yourselves...messing with those White folks like that."
But, she was smiling as we boarded the plane.
Sunday, August 03, 2008
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2 comments:
thats great
and you know they'll spread what they learned/know too
Nice story
I know there are probably more good apples than bad ones. And the good ones don't get enough credit. The media has a lot to do with that.... playing up the negative imagery so much that we now have a culture that has (in some ways) internalized those images....which in turn, creates more negatives. It has become its own beast now...feeding off its own negative imagery. Just about everyone has fallen victim. The avg Joe expects to hear the negatives because they have been conditioned for it, especially when it comes to Black males. That's why I hate watching my local news segments. It's so predictable.
That's why one of the keys to stopping the downward spiral is to improve the imagery so that minority youth are not constantly seeing BET, Rap, death, violence, drugs, stripper culture, excessive materialism, hopelessness, failure, underachievement, etc as the reflection from TV, Radio, Newspapers, the Net, and so forth.
And I wish I could have been a fly on the wall at the airport to see those uncomfortable folk :)....
P.S.
Your internet addiction seems serious. :)
I'm almost as bad...
When St. Louis suffered a huge power outage a while back (I believe it was last year)...
I started to suffer withdrawals at around day 5. The cable connection was out for over a week because of the power problems. I think I ended up finding a Kinko's somewhere.
I have a legit excuse though... I have to be able to have access to my email.
Interesting how your niece's Blackberry just happened to end up in your hands.
Many Sociologists believe that we are becoming too wired. There are even vacation genres that are starting to emerge, designed to completely de-wire folks for a week or two...no cellphones, laptops, or blackberry's.
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