Fly Me To The Moon? No Thank You

Did you watch the launching in space of  Richard Branson yesterday? I just read on  a Facebook page where this guy said he was angry about it and and he talked about why. I  can't say I'm angry about it but I do wonder why we care so much. 

These very rich men racing one another to be the first in space feels ridiculous and insensitive in light of all that's going on in the world. But what really stands out for me is that here we are, the struggling, barely making it or paying too much 99% cheering on the 1% who enjoy lavish, carefree lives at our expense. 

These people are insanely rich only because of their exploitation of us and we cheer them on. We can't afford housing, health care, insurance of all kinds, education, the infrastructure is falling, we are inundated with taxes and inexplicable service fees dreamt up by them and our government, poverty and world hunger are real and yet we are on the sidelines, glued to our boob tubes, cheering on these rich men and the games they enjoy through profits earned on our backs. Feels like a new plantation. I ain't cheering that Massah's happiness is more important or more relevant than my own... 

There is just something very wrong with all of this for me and nope, call me Scrooge, but I didn't watch one second of it! Instead, I hosted a very empowering When Black Women Gather Zoom call for Black Women with the brilliant Gloria Browne-Marshall, author, lawyer, playwright, radio talk show host, law professor, etc. Our souls and our minds were nourished. Our hearts were filled with the spirit of Sistah-hood. That's what I did. How bout' you? 

Footnote:

Someone just shared this video of the late and great  Gil Scott Heron from 1970,  performing  Whitey On The Moon. He so much more precisely critiqued the alarming indifference to poverty and real world struggles. Click here to check it out. 

My Soul Looks Ahead

"The Slave went free; 

stood a brief moment in the sun; 

then moved back again toward slavery"

WEB DuBois

I fear with some of our thinking, this is where we are [headed]. What is it that Harriet said about shooting some of our folks? Perhaps she should have...

Yesterday I read that a republican candidate with Black skin publicly scorned Vanessa Williams for singing Lift Every Voice and Sing, the Black National Anthem, on PBS in celebration of Juneteenth becoming a national holiday. She said it was divisive...

I learned a few weeks ago that 4 years ago, a "man" with Black skin, "Rev" jesse peters, launched July as white history month. Because they needed it...

Although perhaps unconsciously, we have so internalized double standards intended only for us, intentionally designed to hold us down, that it is us who now advocates for enforcement of the Black Codes, I mean double standards, that keep us in our place...

We are becoming the proverbial foot on our own neck. We are proud however and want the world to see, that the shoe on that foot has a red bottom. SMH...

We actually fight to be king crab pulling others of us back down to suffocate beneath us at the bottom of the barrel.

 
All too often it is now us who is unbothered, unmoved and all too joyful to be seated beneath the tree bearing strange fruit dangling above that looks like us. All too often it is us who has provided the rope...

Too many of our youth is obsessed with 'bling' and not interested at all in our history, the shoulders they stand on or the source of the blood, sweat and tears that afforded them the opportunity or ability to achieve that bling. They have bootstraps...

Too many of us are far too happy to be seated at corporate and other tables not prepared by or for us and have zero interest or concern about making place or room for others of us. Pass the wine...

Meanwhile, our Vice President said America is not a racist country...

I could go on...

The white man's work is done. He need now only sit back, eat popcorn and wait. We are becoming our worst enemy.

My Soul Looks Ahead and Weeps...

💔🖤💚