Hello fellow Florida peeps!!! Seems everybody had good weekends even if it involved functional chores like moving!!! The summer is leaving us quickly and I am a sad dancing lamb. My week is filled with work so it looks like Tuesday/Wednesday may be my only day we play.
I love the beaches, fresh water springs, the everglades, swimming with manatees, exploring natural caves, college football and all the tasty treats cooked up in a cast iron skillet!!!
The many local varieties of those delicious crustaceans we call shrimp. I am preferential to Mayport shrimp and then the Florida Keys Pink shrimps they run a close second and are very Yummy!!! My local seafood supplier is saved in my phone. Anyone ever had fresh water bream?? Not only are they fun to catch on the cane pole with a balled up piece of sandwich bread but they are easy to clean and grill. The skin peels right off exposing the whitest, flakiest of meat. I love this state and feel very sad/angry when I encounter hate and ignorance.
I was driving Ms to the farmers market yesterday and we came upon a truck with 9 bumper stickers scattered across the back window. As I was reading them I started having tiny explosions in my head and could already feel the hurt my Ms was enduring from her experience of this displayed hate. Here is what we read.
I'll keep my money, my freedom and my guns and you can keep the "CHANGE"
"If this shit offends you, you need a history lesson." It had a confederate flag in the middle.
"It's a southern thang Yankees will never understand" Another big flag.
Another was a conferderate flag that says "HERITAGE not hate."
Another confederate flag that says "You think this flag represents hate and slavery? YOU ARE WRONG!"
The rest said the same thing "History not Hate" with a flag on it.
I am a white 4th generation Floridian. What I have never been able to love is our history. Just this particular state alone was created first from attempting genocide and wiped out almost all the Native Americans. Then we used the Native Americans, African Americans and Latino coummunity to build it and make it what it is today. My parents and family tried very hard to socialize me with racist, bigoted, and discriminatory behaviors. When I come across these kinds of situations my knee jerk emotional reaction is anger and shame, then a need to engage in some way that may benefit the fight against racism. In the moment sometimes for me it is really hard to evaluate what that fight looks like. My parents have that shit ingrained in them and they may never change. With them I have to call em out all the time. Sometimes so much so that it ruins whatever family event that is going on at the time and I am ok with that!! I have created the loss of some friendships by calling people out time and time again. Some friendships had been lifelong, some not so much, some straight friends, and some queer friends. I have found that it doesn't matter who I call out or how I call em out it is never received well when calling out another human on their racism.
From one fellow Floridian to another I would like to talk about how you all handle racist, bigoted, and discriminatory situations when they come up. I would love to hear what everyone has to say on this topic no matter if your roots to Florida are new or old. We all seem to love this state and what it has to offer us nature and entertainment wise, so I thought we could have a discussion about the unprogressive nature of this state and how it effects us on a daily basis. What we can do to change it and make our state a southern state that has pride based on a whole different moral compass??