Sunday, June 19, 2022

We shall overcome!

On June 19th in 2020, when the former guy was in the Oval Office, and with the pandemic beginning to wreak havoc in our lives, everything seemed dark and gloomy.  On top of that, I knew that I would be laid off because of the financial hole that the university's managers had dug and led us to, and I was doing all the prep work at home for an unemployed future.

On that June 19th in 2020 I blogged about Juneteenth.  Despite the overall sense of doom and gloom, and despite my own General Malaise personality, I wrote then that some day Juneteenth will become a national holiday.

Back in 2020, I would never, ever have bet that Juneteenth would become a national holiday the very next year.  In 2021.

If ever I need to remind myself that I should never give up hope, this is the best and most recent example.

I was so happy with Juneteenth becoming a national holiday that I organized a celebratory dinner at home.  It is humbling to think that the enslaved lived in terrible conditions in a completely alien land under the white supremacist savagery, and yet they survived and prospered.  About time we paid homage to the phenomenally resilient people and celebrated them.

I thought through the dishes that would resonate well with the culinary traditions that people brought from West Africa to the US.  I wanted to celebrate it through a vegetarian version of the foods and colors that are typically included in Juneteenth celebrations. 

And thus the menu became:

Tomato Rice (similar to jollof) 
A dish with okra 
Boiled peanuts (சுண்டல் sundal in the old coutntry)
Watermelon with feta and mint
Red cherry sauce over vanilla ice cream

(We learnt from High on the Hoga four-part Netflix documentary, about the connection with okra and watermelon, and the red-colored foods and dessert.)

I am glad that we now have a national holiday, which will at least tempt many to Google for what Juneteenth is all about.

The following is my blog-post from June 19th in 2020:
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Source

Some day, soon, we will have a truth and reconciliation commission that will help us collectively acknowledge the sin of slavery, come to terms with that horrible past, and launch us on a path forward.  And in that process, Juneteenth will become a national holiday.

For now, here's a Langston Hughes poem that I first blogged ten years ago:

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides, 
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.

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