white History: The 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing

On September 15, 1963, the KKK in Birmingham, Alabama, carried out a terrorist attack on a Black church. Birmingham was the hub of the Civil Rights movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr. The KKK had a large presence in that city and used it to terrorize activists. Birmingham had so many bombings that it was nicknamed "Bombingham."

The terror attack killed four young girls and injured many others. People protested, and two people were killed as Governor Wallace and the National Guard got involved.

The worst of it is, the FBI knew who was responsible within a couple years of the attack, yet opted not to do anything about it and the four KKK members who were responsible, weren't prosecuted for it until years down the line when politics had changed and they were slowly, over the course of three decades, brought to justice, or they died before they could be bought to justice. 

As if being so terrified of having to share power with others that you would kill children to preserve it isn't bad enough, the systems set up to protect all people in this country once again looked out only for white supremacy. On every level, we see white supremacy being protected and promoted.

Bobby Frank Cherry

Herman Frank Cash

Robert Edward Chambliss

Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr.

Sometimes when a bad thing happens, we talk about forgetting the names of the perpetrator because they don't deserve to be remembered. While they don't, their motives do deserve to be remembered. If white people forget our history, then we never have to feel responsible for it or that we benefit from it. We should remember their names. People who know them should know what they did.

And these are the four children who were murdered by the terrorists. They are often shown together in photos, but I thought they deserved to be seen as individual humans, and not just part of a group. Who knows what their lives would be like now if they hadn't been murdered. Friends, family, careers, all ended before they had a chance to begin.

Cynthia Wesley-11

Carol Robertson-14

Denise McNair-14

Addie Mae Collins-14

 

Here are resources you can check out to learn more about this terror attack:

Source 1 

Source 2

Source 3 

Source 4

Source 5 

white History Month: George Washington

February is Black history month, and one of the biggest complaints white people have is "why is there no white history month?" Most of them don't see that history in this country is by default, white history, but I decided to indulge them, anyway. So, this March is white history month. Strap yourselves in for a month of fun factoids about white history! I think the complainers will really enjoy it!

 

Kicking it off with a man white Americans really love...

 

George Washington

Born April 30, 1789

Died  March 4, 1797

Claim to Fame: Hero of the Revolutionary War. First president. Notorious denture wearer. Slavery enthusiast.

Over the course of Washington's life, he would be the owner/co-owner of over 577 humans who worked his land and tended his home. They were unpaid, and unable to leave. He was notoriously vicious with them, separating married couples or parents from children when he felt slighted or wronged by them. The dentures he is famous for are now known to have been made with teeth from his enslaved people. We can only hope they had already fallen out of their mouths, or they were dead when they were taken, but somehow I suspect not...

I live in a state named after this man, and nobody thinks about it. He's on our dollar bill, and we don't think about it. But maybe we should think about it. He helped shape our nation at it's impetus, but he also owned nearly 600 people over the course of his life. At a time when they were creating the rules of a brand new nation, none of those rules and laws was about ending slavery, even though "laws" are the excuse people like him gave for not freeing his slaves. It's hard to reconcile, and I'm not sure it should be reconciled...

Here is a list of links with more information on George Washington:

Wikipedia

Just remember, anytime he's referred to as a "gentleman farmer," it really means, "User of other people to engage in unwilling gardening." 

Mt. Vernon's website does not hold back on detailing Washington as a slave owner. 

The people who really mattered in Washington's life. At least some of their names can be remembered.

This is an account of Washington's main personal enslaved servant. 

ElfQuest and My Life

I moved when I was 8 to a new neighborhood and a new best friend. Visiting her house, I always wondered at the amazing comic books they had there. They were bright and vibrant, and seemed so alive! But elves were silly and comics were for boys, so I never did more than glance at them.

A few years later, I was introduced to Archie comics that my friends and I devoured. I could see now, that comics weren't just for boys. I still thought elves were silly, though.

When I was 15, the artwork of my friend's comics finally drew me to them enough to borrow the first volume. Fire and Flight would burn itself into my mind and soul. It spoke to something in me I didn't know existed. I borrowed the rest of the volumes they had, and that was it. I was hooked on ElfQuest.

It was a time that I was able to buy most of the volumes in hardback color format at bookstores, and eventually in paperback as the newer stories were released. I scrounged and saved my allowance and babysitting money and bought any and all comics I could find at bookstores, because I didn't have access to a comic book store and Amazon didn't exist yet. RIP Walden Books, B. Dalton, and Borders bookstores...I bought the anthology short story books, and the novelized versions of the comics. 

I made a Skywise mask and the World of Two Moons held in Winnowill's hand(sadly lost over the years) in my high school ceramics class. I scanned pictures of the elves to cut out and decorate my locker at school, and after the school year ended, my bedroom walls. 

 

I tried making and using a bow and arrow in the backyard, and that one time my dad and cousins went rifle shooting out in the woods, I did my best to ignore them and tried the bow and arrow again, unsuccessfully.

I found a necklace with a crystal and a figure of a pixie that looks just like Petalwing. I still have it.

ElfQuest was my life.

When I graduated high school and "grew up," my EQ collection moved with me to my first apartment, and has come with me everywhere else I've gone since then. I have actually contemplated who I would leave them to in a will, should I meet an untimely end. They are that much a part of me.

I collected the comics as long as I could before they stopped being published. Luckily, most of them are now available for free online through their website. I did collect the four Final Quest volumes as they were published a few years ago, but I never read them. They sat in my collection, gathering dust. I wasn't ready to say goodbye to the people who had been a part of my life for so long. One day. Some day, I would read them.

In the MCU, they used the tagline, "Part of the story, is the end." That stuck with me. When the pandemic hit last year, I decided to do a grand, sweeping reread of the comics and the novels. I decided that when I got to them, I would read the Final Quest story.

I have spent a year and a half reading these at night before bed, escaping the former guy and the pandemic. And true to my word, I read the Final Quest, finally. I finished it this morning, and I cried. I know the quest is over, and some people's stories have ended, but I know the world Wendy and Richard Pini created is in good hands. Like Disneyland, the World of Two Moons will never truly be finished. They and their team will hopefully continue to create new stories for as long as they are able to and wish to, and a world of fanfiction awaits me to read and maybe even write. EQ has influenced my writing over the years, perhaps it's time I gave back to it. And there is the audio movie coming out. Hearing my beloved characters with voices after such a long time is going to be a dream come true.

I will never not love ElfQuest. I will never "outgrow" it. I grow with it, and it with me. I owe a lot of who I am to Wendy and Richard Pini. I thank them for sharing their story with the world. Through their elves, I learned to love hobbits, and superheroes, and a school for witches and wizards, none of which I would care about at all, it if wasn't for the world of two moons.

I thank them for helping me learn to love elves, at long last. 

(My Cutter mask, one of my newest purchases during the pandemic.)
 

05/12/2021

Now that I am fully vaxxed, I feel like it's a good time to wind down my daily pandemic recap posts. I started this as a way to record my experience on a daily basis so I could look back one day and remember what this unique time was like. Now that life is getting a bit more normal again, a new normal, it's getting tedious to write down the same things over and over again. So, I think this will be my last post, unless random stuff comes up and I can do a post for that day. I'm still doing my good things and food blogs and working on my book, so I'm writing every day still.

It's been a weird, strange time, and it will never go back to exactly the way it was before, but a new normal is being found. I think it'll be pretty nice!

To anybody who has read each day or read once in a while, thanks for checking in and keeping tabs on my life! I hope your lives are getting back to a new normal too!!!

05/11/2021

Today was bonkers busy for the first half, including an incredibly stressful situation of my own making because I messed something up and it just kept dragging on to resolve it. I hate making mistakes, it's just the worst thing ever for a leo. I try my best but perfection just isn't always attainable and then part of me is just wrecked when I can't attain it. Sigh, being a leo is so exhausting and stressful sometimes...

And then around 2pm, our connections to our server died and we had to log in through the actual laptop Chrome versions and it was so irritating!

In between working, I had time to rearrange stuff in my room and now I can open my door more fully again, so I'm happy about that. It got the dishes under control again too. I also got more information about adopting a cat and our building's policy and even submitted an application for a cat! We'll see what happens, but hopefully we'll hear back soon.

After logging out for the day, I took out the garbage and compost, and then I worked on a cobbler recipe for my food blog that I decided to wait till tonight to make so I could take servings in to work for my coworkers and they'd be able to eat it fresher than if I had made it on Sunday. Luckily it turned out, and I'll be writing it up tonight for that blog, and will bring portions for them tomorrow!

Tonight was leftovers from last night, and SPN season 4 dvd specials we got from the library. Some fun commentaries to listen to! Office day next two days.

05/10/2021

It was a very busy morning today working from home but then it really tapered off in the early afternoon. It picked up a bit in the later afternoon, though. I did three loads of laundry during the day. I also found a recipe to try for dinner and was able to thaw some chicken from the freezer in time to try it. It used a lot of the items out of my fridge and was really delicious!

Last night was the When Calls the Heart finale was last night and the fandom is basically in the middle of a civil war now. I was happy with it, though. They'll be back next season and I will be tuning in.

I read on the porch for a bit today, it was really nice until I started sneezing and my sinuses clogged up and it was awful so I came back inside.

My dinner was great and I filled and ran the dishwasher and now we're settled in for our shows for the night.

Also, a little bird keeps landing on our veranda and it's super cute. He's a fluffy chunky thing so we named him Truffle, from the Truffle Shuffle, or Little Chunk, interchangeably. He's so cute!

05/09/2021

I did not seem to have any adverse reactions to the shot from yesterday but I had to deal with being extremely dehydrated from yesterday's drinking almost no water and mostly pop all day. I also had some sinus pain from that and probably all of yesterday's pollen too. I was pretty miserable for the first several hours until I had taken in enough water and could take some Tylenol and sudafed, which both really helped. I also had some issues with feeling really hot for an hour or so until I was more hydrated.

I read a lot in my room today and I stuck with my plan to not do pretty much anything today. I did no chores except making an easy dinner. I did not do my blog recipe, but the next one I want to test I think I'm going to make Tuesday because if it's good I can take fresh servings to my coworkers on Wednesday.

We caught up with our Disney Plus shows, watched The Avengers in our MCU watch, several SPN episodes, our Disney movie of the week: James and the Giant Peach, and we're now watching an episode of GBBO whilst eating Jiffy pop. I will finish the weekend with the season finale of When Calls the Heart after this.

It was a very unproductive day but it was really quite nice! This was a good weekend, all around!