I’m in my little room again
in my little house
with my little bit of light
and assignments to grade,
The sun has set,
My days are full,
I made another pot of coffee
for Monday night football,
In the quiet of now
I count my blessings,
am happy to be at home,
healthy and alive.
cfblack 09-28-2020
I can see how my father,
On the night he died,
Walked the floors,
Waiting for it to subside,
This uneasiness,
This indigestion,
This aging body that won’t let you sleep,
I feel it now as I tell myself
Never to eat before going to bed,
As I turn once again
To the lone cricket sadly singing outside my window,
And tell him
It’s a cool Fall night,
To hush and go to sleep.
cfblack 9/20/2020
The topic of RACE. Last Sunday, I read some quotes from a lovely power point someone else made, with my grandkids in Raleigh. The images were positive images of black and brown people, people of color, African Americans. I want to post something each Sunday night. This week, my son, Jamal Black and I had a discussion about race. I asked him how many NFL coaches are African American this year, as I ask my students this every year. We came up with 3, how many do you find? One was Brian Flores. Do you agree? I’ll post his picture. My response to my son was, “He’s Hispanic. His parents were from Honduras. Central America.” My son said, “He’s black. What else would you call him?” This got me to thinking in a different way about race than ever before. And I teach about it! Brian Flores is Black. But Hispanic. Is he African American? I don’t know. Probably his parental ancestry leads back to Africa. From Honduras. Most of the African slave trade went straight west— to Brazil and Central America. Only 6% of it came up here this far north. Brazil is the country in the world with the largest population of people of African descent– outside of the continent of Africa. HOWEVER, here’s the funny thing. We have “Asian” as a racial category in America; it’s based on geography. We have “Native Hawaiian and Pacific islander” based on geography (of ancestors). People of European descent or Japanese descent living in Hawaii would be “WHITE’ or “ASIAN” in the 48 states. OKAY, what else do we have? “Native American or Indian”. What is that based on? Many different tribes with different cultures all lumped together into “Native”. Because they were here first. Kind of based on geography. What else? Biracial? They can check more than one box since 2010 but they are not a racial category. Hispanic?? Hispanic? No. the U.S. government says “That is not a race. It is a cultural identity, not race.” That is interesting. We all have a cultural identity. African Americans are proud of their cultural heritage. White people have a culture, for sure, and people of color can state what it is. Not usually white people (We are not used to talking about that). Anyway. Sure, whites are more comfortable breaking it down into ethnicity. We are German American (largest white ethnic group in the US). Irish (2nd largest). Dutch, Italian, Polish, Norwegian… that’s ethnicity. Our racial categories currently are: Black /White/Asian/Native American/native Hawaiian or Islander. So is Brian Flores Black? By American judgments, yes. But he is Honduran Hispanic also. Are the other groups based on color? Culture? geography? How about Ron Rivera, another NFL coach? His father is Puerto Rican. Hispanic. U.S. citizen. His wife is Mexican. Wikipedia doesn’t mention what his mother is so she is probably white. Ron Rivera– is he black? brown? or just Hispanic. So what is race?
Doctor Grandma 