2012 in South Africa

Its 2012 in South Africa (and just after 1 pm in Oakland):

Below our apartment, columns of minstrel-framed "coloured" marching bands stream along the streets, blasting horns, drums, tambourines, and dancing in their handmade costumes, continuing hundreds of years of tradition to celebrate one of the only days folks of color were allowed (by Whites) to not work.

And as the deep boom of the fireworks echoes in tune, as the smell of freshly frying samosas for sale to marching bands and revelers alike seeps upwards, as batons swirl, as children parade and shake themselves silly, as the sounds of celebration are beautifully squished through the thin brass tubing of thousands of horns, I'm reminded that even when we can critique the historical significance of a mostly privileged-by-policy, lighter-skin-toned population marching essentially in Blackface, that sometimes, history and tradition and memory is simply too complicated to challenge, too impossible to untangle, and instead of harsh historically, politically, socially valid critiques, we just have to sit back
enjoy the music
and remember that through all the oppression in the world
music still
makes us dance
song still
reminds us of how to live
no matter how problematic such celebration may appear to those on the outside