 A friend of mine and I were having an online discussion about Juneteenth recently. Duane is Black. I am White. We are fellow-Buffalonians. Duane, made a point about his disappointment in what Juneteenth has become. Duane writes, "I really wanted to be pro-Juneteenth, but all of the pandering by this administration and others have turned this from a possible celebration of the unity this country could have, and acknowledgment of the futility and wrongness of past separations, into a divisive, cynical condescending handout to one specific group in exchange for the hope of a firm voting bloc. Instead of everybody celebrating the freedom which this country now offers everybody, we are balcanized over this Monday with other groups asking, “when do I get my day?”
I get the frustration. However, I think WE THE PEOPLE have an opportunity to turn this around and make it unifying. This is a rather "new" public discussion! I remember when I went to my first Juneteenth celebration. It was summer of 1980......the summer between my junior and senior year at Buffalo State. I was living just off campus at Baynes St. and Forest Ave., sharing an apartment with three other women. Two of us were Black and two of us were White. One day, one of our other off campus friends, Barbara, a Black student, said, "Hey come on! Let's go over to the Juneteenth celebration!" "The what?" I asked. "Juneteenth! Come on get dressed up, let's go! " I had no idea what THAT was, but I was up for some summer fun. So we went, over to the Black community near what is now MLK Park. Five beautiful young women, Black and White, dressed in summer clothes kickin' it down Fillmore Avenue, with the music blaring and food cooking and a total party atmosphere for blocks and blocks. All the way down to what was THEN Humboldt Park with the big, refreshing wading pool in the middle. I had NO PREVIOUS IDEA what the celebration was about, but a whole lotta Black folks knew! I was, "late to the game." Still, I was welcome. It is a very warm, positive memory. Fast forward to present times.....I still think most White folks don't know what Juneteenth is about because historically as it has been mostly Black people that celebrated it. That day in Buffalo, I didn't see any other White people other than my other roommate and me. It was a "well-kept secret". I felt somewhat dumb because I'd never heard of it....kind of like in the Black History class I took at Buffalo State when the professor asked, "Who knows who Crispus Attucks was?" and every Black student raised their hand....and we two or three White students were clueless! But, oh well. I got caught up on the info! Now I know! I bet before Juneteenth became a federal holiday, very few White people ever heard of it. But, they can get caught up on it! I am pretty adamant though. Juneteenth is as much for me as for any one. I didn't grow up in a diverse community. It was WHITE. My childhood was WHITE. My knowledge of Black people, history, etc., came from television and news, and you know what kind of role models there were in the media in the 60s and 70s, along with all the stereotypes that accompanied them. Oooooo Buffalo State was a CULTURE SHOCK for me with its on campus population of predominantly Black students from downstate New York. And in it's own way, my "mind" was "emancipated" (yes I'm gonna use that term) from dysfunctional, assumptive, biased "thought". I was able to forge friendships, TRUE friendships, with other Black students without being encumbered by hackneyed historical conventions. One caveat: I imagine making Juneteenth a federal holiday is going to change it. Black people have had the corner on the Juneteenth celebration market for over a century, and many feel, "It's ours." Well, it's really, not. That's some territory some peeps are not going to feel comfortable sharing. Both Black and White people were abolitionists, manned the Underground Railroad, petitioned to legislate the end of slavery, took steps to prevent the spread of slavery into new states coming into the Union, fought and died in the Civil War. The slaves of west Texas weren't emancipated in some sort of bubble. It was the Union Army that rode into Texas to uphold emancipation. I can absolutely understand the ex-slaves of Texas celebrating their finalized freedom, and for generations thereafter to carry on the tradition. But they didn't "free" themselves. The blood of numerous different races of people was shed for freedom. That is undeniable. But the celebration of the concerted effort it took to accomplish, is so very "new" to many folks. And White people are going to have to get comfortable understanding that "unification" factor that my friend, Duane, brought up. Juneteenth is for White people too. But that's a whole different way of talking about it than what has been the standard. So, let's do better. I think this can be turned around for good, and be a force for unity, shared history, and common ground. - Susan Parlato Revels
0 Comments
 No one expected this. Innocent Masuku stands before the judges to try out for Britain's Got Talent and tells about himself. A South African man now living in London. His girl sits in the audience looking on. "That's my fiance," she shares with the man next to her. He's going to sing for the judges. "Are you ready," he says. Then he opens his mouth to sing, and out comes, Un uomo abbraccia una ragazza, Dopo che aveva pianto E ricomincia il canto, Te voglio bene assai Ma tanto, tanto bene, sai... Italian. Italian OPERA! "Caruso"...one of the most beautiful operatic choices he could make. And he not only sings it, but he COMMANDS the stage, with the fierce passion on his face that opera demands. And everyone stands amazed, mouths agape, because they didn't expect to see a brown man from South Africa singing opera.....let alone sing it soooo welllllll! A man embraces a girl After he cried And the singing begins again I love you very much But so, so good, you know It doesn't matter what culture you're from or how much melanin in your skin, THIS man is "Every Man" who has ever loved a woman "so, so good, you know." This is why I disdain the epithet some people inevitably shout, "CULTURAL APPROPRIATION!" Cultural appropriation be damned! Who "owns" the music as if to say "You can't sing it!" Who "owns" the language as if to demand, "You can't speak it!" No one! There is one lone Italian man on the panel of judges. Bruno Tanioli. Watch him in the video. When Innocent breathes out his first Italian words Bruno SPRINGS to the edge of his seat, his face stunned, his eyes almost disbelieving what he is hearing. As Innocent builds to the crescendo, Bruno mouths the song with him word for word, waiting to see. Would Innocent hit the notes of the famous refrain? And then it comes, with all the power and skill of a virtuoso...."Te voglio bene assai! Ma tanto, tanto bene, sai..." Bruno LEAPS to his feet, throws his arms up and his chest out in a triumphant, "AHHHHHHHHH!" fully embracing the mastery of the performer before him. THAT my friend, is a true Italian response! Spontaneous overt rapture! "AHHHHHHHH YESSSSSS! SING IT MY FRIEND!" It does not matter that you don't fit the "expected" description! Put it on! And celebrate the beauty of something different, that the world does not expect! Wear it, Innocent! You wear it well, my friend! - by Susan Parlato Revels Check out this marvelous video online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3lohRXjUCc   Looking at this question in this Black Conservative Female Group post, I believe the answer is, people are discovering the ability to not only appreciate the outer beauty of the lesser or greater amount of melanin in someone's skin, but to look further and see the fellow human inside. People are discovering that while we can still acknowledge the difficult history of our nation and not erase or ignore it, we can move beyond the old negative tropes that separated us, and find the common ground, the common struggle of life, and fall in love.
It is time to stop using race as a tool to divide us: a liberal ploy that only fosters mistrust and discord, when behind closed doors in the privacy of their homes, they know, it is and can be different. But they chant the divisive race-baiting shibboleth anyways, stirring up the fears and angst of the populace below to propel themselves up the ladder of media attention, money, and power. It is time to stop being manipulated, and rise up to embrace a true and organic evolution of diversification and belonging, through genuine love and brotherhood. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7: 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails. By Susan Revels  I just watched the movie. Twice. In two days. I watched it first because I just love Brendan Fraser, and I was thrilled he won best actor, so I had to see it, even though I had no idea what it was about. I watched it a second time because, I had a lot to process. Well, it was indeed, an incredible film. Fraser deserves that Oscar without question. I was riveted by the movie and cried on and off throughout, but probably for reasons that differ from other people. This commentary focuses on the first reason.....the "fatphobia" controversy that has arisen around this movie.
Fraser plays Charlie, a 600 lb. man whose weight has ultimately confined him to the limited boundaries of his small apartment. Living room; kitchen; bedroom; bathroom. He is middle aged, and is a college teacher of writing, meeting with classes online. His mantra to his students is to write with unflinching honesty, while at the same time hiding himself from them by keeping his camera off, feigning it is broken. He is quite conscious of his weight and what his life has been reduced to, stating of himself in the movie, “Look at me. Who would want to have a relationship with me?” The viewer discovers early in the movie that Charlie is in the end stages of congestive heart failure. Knowing death is imminent, he embarks one last time on an effort to try to connect with his beloved, albeit estranged 18 yr. old daughter, played superlatively by actress Sadie Sink of Stranger Things fame. Enter the controversy. Voices are swirling since Fraser’s Oscar win about how people should not go see this movie due to what they call “fat shaming”. That use of a “fat-suit” is considered unconscionable, even though the director and artists called it a prosthetic suit in practice. That the director should have found a plus-size actor. That the movie casts obese people in a pathetic and pitiful light that only leads to more “fatphobia” and adds to what some have called the “ick” factor. The ideal of “big girl beauty” that the singer Lizzo personifies teeters dangerously on the edge in comparison to the outsized attention seized by The Whale. I say: bravo. It is time we cease this fairytale redesign of what boils down to being destructive health practices with deleterious impact. Believe it or not, I say this with love, and grief, and pain, having had a front row seat to the self-destructive traits of my father. In The Whale, you see Brendan Fraser in a prosthetic suit that gives only a hint of the toll of obesity on the body. In the above photo you see my father's legs, and the unflinchingly honest toll. I say this carefully, and protectively, because I loved my father, right down to his last codependent, food-addicted wheezing breath. Unlike Charlie, my father was not 600 lbs. But he was an obese man. Like Charlie, as he aged, my father had a chair around which orbited his life. Tables were piled high with the things he would need. Medications. Magazines. Remotes. Blood monitors. Test strips. His walker was positioned arm’s reach away. Folding “grabbers” just like Charlie used lived in numerous locations around the house. Something that dropped on the floor would often stay where it fell until another human could retrieve it. Dad’s relative struggle with food eventually led to diabetes in his forties. He never took the time to learn what foods would lead to a healthy body, so the diabetes progressed. Over the years he developed neuropathy in his hands and feet making it more difficult to walk and move. This led to becoming more sedentary, which led to more weight, less activity, less socialization. The television became his company and food was a ready friend. He refused to use his CPAP machine for sleep apnea, which then led to atrial fibrillation, more weakness and exhaustion. Then came heart issues, aortic valve replacement, open heart surgery, pitting edema, depression, anger, anxiety. Shoes couldn’t be tied so when he did walk he resorted to walking around stocking-footed. He couldn’t sleep well. His legs riddled with edema became too heavy to lift up into bed, so he slept in his recliner. He became a fall risk doing just about anything. Charlie at least got in the shower and was seen washing himself with a long-handled sponge. My father was terrified of the shower. Even though he had his home retrofitted with a walk-in shower, and eventually had a home health aide come daily throughout the week, he avoided stripping down to be cleaned. This only led to more humiliation. Soon diabetes effected my father’s eyesight and macular degeneration darkened his world even further. Like Charlie, my father would labor just to stand up to his walker in order to drag himself to the bathroom and back. Eventually, like Charlie, a wheelchair became the preferred form of locomotion. I would fly back east as often as I could, as would various siblings. Only my brother lived in driving distance a half hour away. When I did visit, bathing my father’s swollen feet, crusted with dead skin overgrowth, became a welcome routine. I’d soak his feet in a warm foot bath and lather them with soap. Then I’d work and rub each toe one at a time, until little rolls of the dead skin loosened up under my fingers. I’d rinse away the rolls and dry off his feet with a soft towel. Then rub lotion into his toes, arches and heels until the skin became more supple. I'd squeeze more lotion onto his swollen fluid-filled legs, compress my fingers around them and slide my hands upward in an effort to propel the fluid in his tissues up his legs and into his torso where his heart could help circulate it into his system and he would pee it out. I'd then enfold one leg at a time into a synthetic sleeve that would inflate with the flick of a switch and continue to press the fluid upward in the fight against edema. But gravity would always win. This may sound like a repulsive task, but it wasn’t. He was my father. He hurt. He struggled. He was lonely. And who on earth was there to provide any form of skin-to-skin human touch? This small thing, I could provide. In the end, my father’s final years were no kind of life. I would not wish them on anyone. I worried about him incessantly. He hid his pain from many people, but with me, he’d let down his guard sometimes and cry. “I’m tired, Susan. I’m so tired.” I share these things not to castigate with shame. I was not ashamed of my father. But I wished a different life for him. Different knowledge that would have led to different decisions and different ways of being that could have led to a very different end. It is time we stop heroizing the epidemic of obesity in our country and get unflinchingly honest with ourselves. I also took this movie as a stern admonishment to myself. I too, have struggled with weight in my life. At one time I had it under control. A year and a half ago, a doctor put me on an inhaler for an asthmatic episode. Over the next 10 months I experienced progressive myopathy, loss of muscle mass, weakness, and eventually drug-induced neuropathy. With the loss of activity came an increase in my weight. Once I realized the drug/pathology connection I weaned off the drug immediately. In 2 weeks the neuropathy had disappeared but the muscle weakness has been more tenacious. It has been 8 months and I am slowly regaining strength and stability, finally starting back to the gym. But watching The Whale, there was that small, disquieting voice in my head reminding me to keep going. Keep making good food choices. Keep pursuing physical activity. I mustn’t become complacent, or my father’s end could become my own. - Susan Parlato Revels Well....Occupy Democrats.....my dad grew up at a time of pretty intense racial division between Italians (especially Sicilians) and Black Americans. I heard some of the Italian words he used to use. He was none too keen on me dating Black men. But when my future husband, Scott, asked my dad permission to marry me, my dad said yes, and embraced my husband as a son, and danced at my wedding. And when my babies were born, my dad was right there to play with them, help with them, feed them, hold them. And when I couldn't easily afford 3 tickets to fly across country to visit him in NY, my dad paid for the tickets for both my kids, EVERY time we flew out. And he helped me start college education funds for both of them. My daughter recently graduated with no college debt at all, and part of that was due to my dad. And when my dad heard Scott's cousin's name called out in a doctor's office, 2000 miles away from my home, my dad waited for that man to come out from his appointment, and inquired if there was a family connection. And there was. As they talked, my dad flipped open his wallet and flipped through photos of my kids, and this old White man and this old Black man who didn't know each other from Adam, stood together in that doctor's office and laughed together about the irony of meeting in that office, and smiled over photos of brown children they were both related to by blood. By blood. People can change. My father sure changed. And loved. This Occupy Democrats photo from 1960 is horrific.....but it is 62 years old, and it's sole purpose in the present AS IT IS USED HERE is to stir up strife and fear and hate and division based on assumption. I'm not going to give such messages an easy pass when I encounter them. I have seen change in my own life. And I love. My friends. My husband. My children. My family. THIS is my community of ALL ethnicities. Change is possible. Change, for many, has already happened. We can remain stuck, or we can help change happen.
At Greg's memorial service. Just a thought: Sure were a lot of White folks who turned out to celebrate Greg's life, reminisce, and send his ashes on his final kayak ride. (Yep....I'm goin' there.) Guess there's a lot more love goin' on in this country than people think. Memorial for my friend Greg Green: "Greg Green, a long-time Cheat and Yough river guide and a pioneering whitewater photographer, died on June 22nd. He was 76. He was the first African American paddler in the area; very skilled and likeable. Green’s Hole on the Old Cheat (pre’85flood)was named for him."https://jeffmacklin.smugmug.com/Whitewater/2022/2022-07-14-Greg-Green-Memorial/ The first time I met Greg was in Pennsylvania, as the partner of my long-time friend, Becky Hilton. He had a photography business on the river, taking shots of people as they ran rapids on the New River in West Virginia. I was visiting for the weekend. I'd never been rafting. "Hey Sue," he said. "Wanna run the river tomorrow?" "REALLY??!! YES!!!!" I shouted. The next day I went with Becky and two other women in a raft. Greg put on in his kayak. All were river runners, except me. One woman manned the center-mount oars. Thank God they knew what they were doing because I was clueless. But, I could follow directions. We were on the river for hours, and it was one of the most spectacular experiences of my life up until then. I fell out of the raft in one gnarly rapid and they had to pull me back on board. We arrived back at Becky and Greg's house in the late afternoon, tired, hungry, smelling like river and sun. "Greg," I said. "Thank you so much. That was sooo much fun!" "Good," said Greg. "Wanna go again tomorrow?" I thought he was kidding me. "Are you kidding me??" "Nope." "YES I WANNA GO AGAIN!" And so we did. That was my introduction to the sport, and to the man. Thank you, Greg Green.   by Susan Parlato Revels
I know there's controversy about it. Making Juneteenth a federal holiday. I've read the pros and cons all day today. So here's my "skin in the game"...... I remember the first Juneteenth celebration I went to 42 years ago. Barbara, Inez and Robin, my girlfriends (who were Black) said, "Come on, Susan, lets go to the Juneteenth celebration!" I didn't know what it was, but I said, "Okay!" It was hot and the humidity index was sky high. We girls, young and beautiful, got all dressed up in our summer finery and walked down Fillmore Avenue in Buffalo, New York, laughing and dancing, music blasting from everywhere, and joining a whole community of people who were celebrating, having fun...joyous. And I learned what Juneteenth was about. There were hardly any other White people there, but I was HAPPY to be invited to join that observance . And I was HAPPY to celebrate - not that my fellow merrymakers themselves had been freed from slavery, but to commemorate the time in history where we as a nation took a step in the right direction away from oppression and toward something that could build inter-racial solidarity. There's that proverb that says, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." I was grateful we could all just "be" with each other and acknowledge that we were now many steps away from a very brutal period of our history. We "girls" could not have walked down the street together like that a century or so earlier. What would my innocent and winsome companions have been subjected to if we lived at another time? But there we were, we twenty-something dream girls, reveling in that freedom of youth and affection, afforded to us because of the time in which we were fortunate enough to be born. I celebrate it for both Black and White people.....for us to recognize that we can overcome the phobias of the past and learn to appreciate each other as fellow humans and FRIENDS in this short stint of time where we happen to populate this earth and breathe the same air. I celebrate it for others, AND I celebrate it for MYSELF.....that I don't have to live during that time in America where having my fellow humans in bondage was the law of the land, where my ability to do anything about it was dictated by the demands of others, where my own mind could have been seared, and I can now have completely free, intimate and loyal relationships with people who do not happen to share my skin color. I SHUDDER at the thought of what my husband, son and daughter would be experiencing right now if we lived 150 years ago. I know what racist components of my childhood used to influence my thinking, and what I had to do to overcome them. I know what it took to free my heart and mind from the influences of my past. I don't commemorate this day out of ANY sense of White guilt. I commemorate it, because I escaped, and just happened to enter this world at a time where my choices of friends and loved ones are influenced by.......knowing each other. I....am free....TOO. So.....HAPPY JUNETEENTH. EVERYBODY. Apparently Coca Cola had scheduled some mandatory training for it's employees. Called "Confronting Racism" and to be delivered via LinkedIn, it told their employees to try to be "less White". On Monday, LinkedIn said it had pulled the course in question — which included interviews with sociologist Robin DiAngelo, the author of “White Fragility.” WAY TO GO, LinkedIn! By the way, for all you naysayers out there I DID read the book, "White Fragility" by Robin DeAngelo. Well actually, I listened to the audio version. Twice. (And I recommend you read it too, so you can comment on it from a point of knowledge.) SOME points made in the book are worth considering....but to me....a LOT is cringe-worthy virtue signalling. I'm totally game for programs that work towards better inter-racial communication and interactions. But some of the so-called "journalism" out there these days and the unfettered demands of corporations is beyond reason.   The Sandia Mountains at the eastern edge of Albuquerque, New Mexico by Susan Parlato Revels
My first visit "out west" was in the early spring of 1988 on a trip to Las Vegas, Nevada for a conference. I couldn't have cared less for the casinos. Instead, with friends, we rented a car on our downtime and explored the desert. The air was arid and crisp. It was March, before the onset of any significant heat. We rode horses and climbed rocks and walked what seemed a moonscape to my unseasoned eye. Not the wall of trees like my eastern life, where you could not see where the sky met the earth. But instead, endless miles of horizon, rock wilderness and red earth. I understood then why holy men went to the desert to “hear God”. I gathered some of that red dirt to take back to NYC with me, so I could remember this pristine, cleansing expanse. And I prayed, "Lord, bring me to a desert place." I meant, bring me to such a place in my heart, enveloped in silence where my mind could be still. But God brought me to that place in reality, with an added bonus: mountains. Mountains that I live in, for my city is a mile high. Mountains that stand sentinel just to the east of home. Mountains that I can see every day, from anywhere I travel in town. Mountains that are a guidepost at any given moment and give me my bearings, for if I am ever lost, I just need to look up to see where they stand, and I know in which direction I am traveling, and how to get home. When life has threatened to overwhelm, those mountains have been a bolster to my spirit, because just looking at them requires me to “look up”….and then I recall that God is the lifter of my head. They remind me that God is the rock on which I need to lean because he is ever-present, solid and enduring. They remind me that though my problems seem insurmountable to me, God is bigger. And He, will not be moved. Today, the first morning of 2021, I am thankful for the sunrise on these mountains. It brings to mind the God of my past and the roads I traveled to arrive at this place today, led by His secure hand. It reassures me that going forward, God knows the road. As I gladly bid good-bye to 2020, and look ahead to the uncertain future of 2021, the mountains remind me that God is El Roi – The God Who Sees. No matter what struggles I will encounter, as God was in the past, He is already there in my future, waiting for me, and I can move forward, in peace. Psalm 121 I will lift up my eyes to the mountains--From whence comes my help? My help comes from the LORD, Who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel Shall neither slumber nor sleep. ....... The LORD shall preserve you from all evil; He shall preserve your soul. The LORD shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and even forevermore. |
Susan Parlato RevelsArchives
June 2024
Categories
All
links to other sites
www.abuacademy.com
|
RSS Feed
Proudly powered by Weebly