Just Some Updates
Filed Under Tayo Speaks
Sorry I’ve been gone so long, I’ve had a busy couple of weeks. Doing a lot of stuff at work and at home.
I’m involved in a local group called CEO (Community Empowerment Organization); it’s an offshoot of The League of Young Voters. We have been planning a spades tournament for the last six months (really really planning for the last two). In the last two weeks, we blanketed Tallahassee with thousands of flyers. Sent email blasts, sent Facebook invites, MySpace bulletins, etc, etc, etc. We needed 32 teams (64 people) to about break even. We got six real teams and two teams made up of some of CEO. Disappointing to say the least. Still had fun, I was eliminated in the first round with a score of (their) 7 points to (our) 2 points. But I think I held up my own for only learning how to play about three weeks ago.
While passing out flyers, we (a group of 4 twenty-something Black ladies) went out to one particular area on FSU campus. Basically they took part of fraternity row (you know, that street on College Campus USA that has all the Greek houses) and put in in this huge apartment complex-type thing, whatever. It hurt my heart a little because we got all types of stares from the white college students, like “Oh my gosh, it’s the Negroes! What do we do?!?!”
One of my homegirls approached a group of students sitting outside and said that they all kind of froze like a deer in the headlights. Another one gave one a flyer and heard him saying to his friend as she walked away “Great, I almost escaped but the black girl came and gave me this flyer”. As we were walking to the car, two girls visibly moved to the other side of the sidewalk to let us pass (mind you, we were walking single file and it was a wide-ass sidewalk). I don’t recall seeing a Black face. I just remember thinking that these are going to be some of the future leaders of America and I’m feeling like if they harbor these (latent?) racist/discriminatory tendencies now, what happens in ten years?
I also volunteered at the Red Hills Triathlon, coincidentally with the three same girls. The triathlon consisted of three heats: 1) a 1/3 mile swim, 2) a 16 mile bike and 3) a 3 mile run. We were located in the run portion so we were handing out water, Gatorade, and Gu Energy Gel to the runners. We almost got eaten by the gigantor mosquitoes out there in the wood but it was fun, cheering them on. A few of the triathletes actually told us how great it was that we were out there screaming for them. Plus we got free swag in the form of two cool ass shirts. And then breakfast at Village Inn. All in all a pretty good day.
One last thing for now and I’m done: this morning, I got to ride in a BearCat. That is the nickname for the Tallahassee Police Department’s SWAT team vehicle. You know, that mega-huge Hummer thing that they ride around in. It was… an interesting experience. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves…
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That police truck looks like something from 2020! And what is that white dude that’s hugging you with the mask on doing??? lol
wow, that looked like a fun experience and yh whats the guys thats hugging you doing?
Umm, I couldn’t tell you the motivation of the guy in the gas mask (incidentally, he’s the PIO for the police department), but it made for an…interesting picture.