Happy Cinco de Mayo!

By Denise Renée Purdie

… or should I say excuse for Black people to party even though we’re not Mexican.

We party with the Irish, the Mexicans … really we don’t care as long as there is music and good food! I tend to think this is because of our egalitarian nature, in addition to the fact that we just love to have a great time.   

Up until now, I’m not sure I researched any of these holidays too deeply … but some of them do have some pretty horrific stories surrounding them, especially St. Patrick’s Day, but if we can celebrate the day we found out some two years late that we were free in this country, we can probably celebrate anything. For groans and grotesqueness, look up St. Patrick’s Day. Hopefully what I discovered isn’t true. 🥺

Thinking about this topic, even the 4th of July is irritating because truly it wasn’t independence for us, but as I said, we appreciate good music, good food and I appreciate fireworks. The spirit of the thing is what we get into and we try to ignore the things behind it. I feel like that’s part of the reason we survived in this country. The other reasons were our natural resilience, genius, adaptability and the grace of God.

Back to the party though, go get some supplies, delicious Mexican food, get cute, cue the mariachi music and ¡Tengas un buen tiempo!