Yesterday was Juneteenth – a day to take a victory lap and celebrate one achievement in our history. And therefore today is a day to get back to work. Very few people can say that as well as John Pavlovitz (although the FFT, a cartoon originally published in 1876, is strong.) I hope your Juneteenth was pleasant and refreshing, since we all need to be refreshed periodically.
Cartoon –
Short Takes –
John Pavlovitz – Are we there yet?
Quote – Yesterday, a friend who is a rabbi called to tell me that the Black Lives Matter flag in his yard had been ripped down, placed against their family’s car and set on fire. He and his family were of course devastated, but not just for his family but for what acts of violence like this represent and mean. In the fight against the cancer of racism, we are not there yet. But many people, like my friend and his family, people like you aren’t going to rest or be driven off course. We’re awake and alive in this day and that makes us dangerous to those still warring against equity…. Are we there yet? Not yet. Don’t let that truth dishearten you, let it move you.
Clck through for full column. Not much, if anything , I can add.
The 19th – What a teacher’s little red book taught the world about the Tulsa massacre
Quote – “Parrish’s work became a vital primary source for other people’s writings,” journalist Victor Luckerson wrote in his recently released book, “Built From the Fire.” “Yet her life remained unknown, even as the facts that she had gathered — such as several firsthand accounts of airplanes being used to surveil or attack Greenwood — became foundational to the nation’s understanding of the massacre. She was, quite literally, relegated to the footnotes of history.” Parrish’s great-granddaughter Anneliese Bruner is following in her footsteps as a writer and editor but didn’t learn of her connection to Parrish — or the events of Tulsa — until she was in her 30s.
Click through for story. Someone recently said that MAGA Republicans have the minds of toddlers – up to and including an obsession with genitalia. How many violent crimes have been based on lies involving genitalia?
The New Yorker – The Celebration of Juneteenth in Ralph Ellison’s “Juneteenth”
Quote – “We were owned and faced with the awe-inspiring labor of transforming God’s Word into a lantern so that in the darkness we’d know where we were. Oh God hasn’t been easy with us because He always plans for the loooong haul. He’s looking far ahead and this time He wants a well-tested people to work his will. . . . He’s tired of untempered tools and half-blind masons! Therefore, He’s going to keep on testing us against the rocks and in the fires. He’s going to plunge us into the ice-cold water. And each time we come out we’ll be blue and as tough as cold-blue steel! Ah yes! He means for us to be a new kind of human. Maybe we won’t be that people but we’ll be a part of that people, we’ll be an element in them, amen!”
Click through for details. I hope you can stand one more article about Juneteenth. Ralph Ellison is best known for “The Invisible Man.” When he died, he left a good deal of unfinished work, including “Juneteenth,” which was put together by an editor, but most of it is pure Ellison. If you are paywalled out, I’ll send it in an email if you let me know.
Food For Thought
them?) I don’t really want to start on them; there’s way too much to say, and I need instead to share first, that here is my Superb Owl for the day – this one because he is a ring made from precious stones and precious metals – how could he not be superb? And secondly, that I chose two Colorado stories for today, and at least one of them is not intense. (Also, I promise to greet Virgil from everyone and to check in upon return.)
A teenager who walked among protesters in Kenosha, Wis., carrying a military-style semi-automatic rifle was 
Mr. Rittenhouse was arrested early Wednesday in his hometown, Antioch, Ill., which is about 30 minutes southwest of the 
