The N Words Sup Wit Dat?

I don't think that there is much that I can say here I just wanted to post this on my site so that we can have some dialogue going on about this N word thing.
I don't really think about it only because I can't believe the word still gets used yes even by my. By habit really because as I was growing up thats what I heard and still today I hear the word in my community and in my family.
Here is what is interesting though is that when you are a fly on the wall listening to the word you know the inflections of the voice to know the meaning of said N word if that makes sense.
Example:

1. Two brothas come up to one another and give each other dap and says, "What's up my N!" and they hug. - That is a term of endearment there
2. A group of young teens are walking through the mall all African American, two older black women shake their heads and say "Chile look at that group of N's right there, they need to calm down" - Hooligans, punks
3. Spike Lees School Daze scene at KFC Samuel Jackson says "Ya'll N's and you gone be N's just like us" - a term of self hatred passed down from generation to generation.
4. A young lady is on the phone with her best friend speaking of her boyfriend and how happy she is with him she says , "Girl I love my boo that's my N" - she loves her man

These are just examples of how our community uses this word. It is hard to explain but Jeraldo Rivera said something interesting today on Fox News this morning on this topic.
He being Latino told of how white ranchers in Texas used the derogatory term Chicano to describe their workers. It meant to the white ranchers they were low lifes. He said now you can hear Latinos calling themselves Chicano and claiming it as a sense of pride rather than what it was created to mean. They took the word and made it their own.
You know in the black community we do that same thing but because there is 400 hundreds years of slavery, abuse, degradation and genocide that is associated with that word it still to this holds a bitter taste in our mouths and goodnes don't let anyone else use it that is not African American.
I'm not excusing it, I'm explaing MY point and how I myself understand the word. So the next time you hear the word listen, really listen and then dicipher the true meaning.
Then make up your own mind on where that word should be in your own personal vocabulary.

Plans already for 2009

Car Show on Sunday June 22, 2008 in Camden, Arkansas in the video above.

Well we are already getting ready for 2009. The core group of us sat down and of course planned out the intimate details. Thats always fun because we have such a hard time with how we can make everyone in the city happy and still get our point acrss.

This year we decided on offering family packages so families can plan their reunion with us and choose which package best fits their budget. Once they do that they can make their payments throughout the years and be ready for Juneteenth 2009 without hurting the purse strings.

Sounds like a plan huh?

I will certainly have to keep you posted on how that goes for sure since that is going to certainly be more work administratively for me. But you know this is like a game for me. I want to know how far I can take it with this celebration. I want to know how we can educate the public about America's second independence day and still get businesses to see how they can particpate and benefit from this special day that many states are begining to recognize as a state holiday.


What I would like to say is this stay tuned for this years planning of Juneteenth 2009 Family Reunion. This is going to be very very interesting.



Next post ...meet the staff of the Juneteenth Foundation in Camden

Success!

Thank you's and Acknowledgements on this video!

Well everyone after my ranting on this blog I went back to the drawing board and to the other active Juneteenth Committee members and we devised a marketing plan for January 2008.

With the little money that we were given by the local advertising and promotion committee of our town and no cooperate sponsorhip, we were able to make our city officials stand up and take notice of us.

With all of our events we brought about 22 thousand people to this little town that is dying. ( i mean that literally most of the manufacturing jobs are moving out of the country or away from here). McDonald's ran out of hamburgers! Walmart ran out of money! (not a supercenter though). Allen's ran out of silverware for the opening ceremony banquet!

On Sunday the car show was a blast and the carnival and .....well all of the events were full to capacity literally.

Now all I can say is this. Local businesses who only see this as N*^&^a Day now have to look at us for what we did. We brought much needed revenue to this tiny town and they were glad for it.

I guess you could say we were the little engine that could and finally did.