no, and I sure wasn’t looking for one. 
Now I feel for you is stuck in my head… I loved that song as a kid. I want to say I had the single?
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Love that one, too…though I remember the Whitney Houston cover better?
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I don’t- it’s Chaka - all the way! But - like Leonard- she contains multitudes!
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Do you think she was somehow unusual? There is nothing we know of in her personal life that stands out as unique. She was a slave, and then after the Civil War she worked her butt off for virtually no money for the rest of her life. She was used and taken advantage of, and others (white people) made money off of her every day of her life.
This is the story of African Americans in the U.S., full stop.
Why are you fixated on this one individual, and not on what her situation represents for millions of individuals?
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This for me is the real power of focusing on an individual narrative, that it can open up a greater understanding of how a community lived and was shaped by circumstances outside of their control, AND how they pushed against those boundaries. It tells us about the historical context and about the very real limitations of agency in many cases. What did Marx say? Here’s the quote…
Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language.
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Oh, I get it.
None of us have any knowledge or training in this subject, so if it weren’t for you, we’d all continue to be ignorant.
Of course you have to keep posting the same thing over and over again, because we’re just not getting it through our thick skulls.
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I’m not “fixated” on just this one lady.
This thread is about her so that’s who I am talking about now.
in a previous post, I quote Bronzeville Historical Society President Sherry Williams on what she researched about Nancy Green.
I don’t claim to be any sort of expert.
I was raised by intelligent, educated women AND men and I respect people who do something with their lives. Those are the people that push us forward.
too often the people today that get “famous” or “infamous” are not worthy of this fame. I’d like to change that.
It’s not though, it’s about the Aunt Jemima brand that exploited her in the furtherance of its own ends.
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Sherry Williams is one person. She has her own opinion. She does not represent all Black people.
It’s very clear to me that you don’t know Ms Williams in any way, shape or form. Her opinion (which is not commonly shared here on the south side of Chicago) showed up in an NPR piece and matches yours, so you keep harkening back to her as some sort of ultimate authority. She isn’t.
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and that’s because the company that made syrup only cared about the syrup, making money, sales and not one thought went into the person of Nancy Green.
I think we all object to that and I want exploitation to stop
You do? Great. Join a Black Lives Matter protest, then. Do something instead of arguing the same tiny point over and over again on the internet with people who know a lot more than you do.
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There’s something really concerning about ‘allies’ who seem to spend all their time arguing about what they want and how they feel, as opposed to actively listening and taking actions to affect real change.
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if I was younger i’d be there protesting.
My time is better spent talking to caucasian people about their “White Privilege”. Some people admit it but many don’t. Nothing will improve without this realization. I’m convinced this is the key
I hope you actually listen to what Black people have to say before you go having those conversations, lest you misspeak…
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So far, your hopes are being dashed.
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Of course. but I keep it simple.
Considering what most people have seen from recent cell phone videos all I have to do is point out that in my entire long life I have never been stopped by the police. And it’s only because the cops look at white females as “not suspicious”.
Those who don’t believe this is a perfect example of White Privilege object and find all sorts of excuses but I don’t let them off. I can hear the tops of their heads explode.
They can’t deny the facts or my experience, nor theirs, frankly. All I do is point that out and let the fireworks go off.
someday, after they have run out of explosives maybe we’ll get to more examples of White Privilege. But that one works every time
