As I've written before, on 19 March 2023, I visited Bethel Missionary Baptist Church and met the Rev. Dr. R. B. Holmes Jr.
http://www.betheltally.org
CE 2023 Mar 16
Before visiting the church I had done some research. One of the videos on the church's website was about Northern Florida African American congregations. Blacks in Miami have a saying.
If you aren't in Miami-Dade or Broward Counties, you're in Southern Georgia.
The Tallahassee church has been instrumental in improving the local Black neighbourhood. The Church was black to the extent that when I visited, I was the fly in the ointment.
The video from the website included an interview with an elderly (elderly is anyone older than me) woman who had lived during Jim Crow. Jim Crow, if you are a white Yankee, is something that happened in the South. If you are African-American, you know school segregation, voting rights, etc. in the land of the northern agressors has always been as bad, if not worse, than in The Confederacy.
This 90 or so year-old woman had seen her folks beaten because they tried to walk across a bridge.
CE 28.01.2024 07:26
Selma, Alabama, United States
She'd been raised in Catholic school in St. Augustine. The congregations in those days didn't mix. The blacks had their own schools, services, etc. She had watched her people gain some political control, albeit insufficient to stop the police from arresting, beating, and killing her people worse than white folks. She had seen her community disappear. The apartness had evaporated, and with that evaporation, so had much of her culture.
She missed the community. She missed a neighborhood that many cops would not venture into because they took care of their own. She missed the familiarity, the sense of cooperation and mutual support.
Race in America, like gender, is under assualt, sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad way. As Black Americans achieve economic gains, they aspire to Whiter lifestyles. The benchmark in America is White. That is less so in South Africa. One feels and sees Black Africans glory in their proud heritage, a heritage which includes one of the most peaceful revolutions against one of the richest White oppressors in history. I am proud, and honoured, to stand next to them.
standing watch
when those penguins attack WE'll be ready
CE 2024 Aug 20
Cape Point - Cape Of Good Hope Nature Reserve
The fact that the racial wealth gap in the US is similar to that of a country that recently emerged from apartheid is a sobering indictment.
Excerpt From
The Racial Wealth Gap in South Africa and the United States
Grieve Chelwa
This material may be protected by copyright.
A "sobering indictment" only if you are naive enough to think American Apartheid is not as bad, if not worse than South African Apartheid ever was. American propaganda is better.
Eighty percent of South Africa is black.
In South Africa, the typical Black household owns 5 per cent of the wealth held by the typical White household. In the US, the typical Black household owns 6 per cent of the wealth held by the typical White household. In both countries, a racial wealth gap exists at different levels of education and income.
Some suggest education is the solution. According to this infographic, education isn't helping Black South Africans. If anything, there is a greater disparity among better educated Blacks and Whites.
One way Americans have attempted to encourage business ownership across racial lines are tax incentives and government programs to aid minority or "protected class" (We hate that phrase.) owned businesses. These programs have been abused by investors using token representatives. Moreover, the programs don't seem to have made a substantial impact in raising the Black standard of living to that of the White. Arguably, the one percent difference between Black American and Black South Africa households is that American elites have had to buy off American Blacks upset by American Apartheid police corruption, sub-standard schooling, and glass ceilings.
nothing is key
Perhaps the key is nothing. Black culture seems so much less absorbed in stuff. Asians and European cultures seem so absorbed in winning, getting more, a bigger house, a better car. As I've written before, Black smiles seem so full of warmth, contentment, and genuine goodwill, one wonders if the rest of us will ever learn to smile like them.
Germans, Japanese, Americans and others often seem to idealise the American 1950s. Life was good. Segregation was rife. We had community, and we had huge economic disparity. We still lack economic equality, and we've lost much of the communities.
Also, as I've written before, civilisation seems to have gone too far. The developed nations are too developed. Here in Africa, no u-turn is needed. No rewind button necessary. If we build carefully, slowly. Zero harm.
https://www.safetyandhealthinmining.co.za/the-2023-campaign
