Kendrick Lamar in LA: Juneteenth (watch)

Kendrick Lamar becomes first rapper to win Pulitzer Prize for music (DNAindia.com)

Watch full set live from Kia Forum, Los Angeles (before it's taken down) professionally filmed:

With all this talk of joy (Buddhist piti) around Juneteeth, here's some sincere laughter at wokeness

It's time we bring Bloods and Crips together for a truce, peace, and music. It's a good day to see Kendrick at LA's Kia forum, singing about his bloody beef with Jewish Canadian rapper Drake, on Juneteenth. When he first hit big, singing about trying to quit alcohol in Compton and dreaming of jumping into pools of booze, everybody already knew him and all the lyrics to every song. We were at Staples, and everyone was jumping in the pit area so much that the floor sagged and bounced.

That punkazzbiznatch Drake, he's not like us.

It was scary and seemed like it could collapse. He had Dr. Dre as his special guest. Soon after that he pulled a stunt of coming to a sporting event on a bus for a free post-show concert. It turned into a riot -- a mob of fans and LAPD tactics and helicopters trying to beat down what they viewed as chaos. The Forum is right in the middle of "South Central" near LAX Airport, which is now converted to a gentrified venue and pricey parking. It's going to be madness.

Every shot Kendrick took at Drake at "The Pop Out" concert explained

(Pearl Fountain) June 20, 2024: Kendrick Lamar brought all the West Coast on stage to dance on Drake's grave last night, after sneak dissing him for four hours in a three-act show featuring Ty Dolla Sign, YG, Tyler the Creator, and every other West Coast rapper you can think of. Here's a breakdown of every direct and subtle diss from the show. Instagram.com/omarabdelhmd

White on white golf course bullying, Deep South

Back Off Challenge, Mississippi, USA

Dharma and Emancipation: Reflections on Juneteenth with Dr. Kamilah Majied

Author, former Ohio State University Prof, Alexander wins Heinz Award (WOSU Public Media)

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The Book of Joy (Dalai Lama)

(Tricycle) June 19th is called "Juneteenth," a holiday celebrating the end of American slavery. Although such slavery continues, at least it's mostly legal and bigger now than ever but transformed.

What ended was chattel slavery or treating people (Native Americans, Black, Caribbeans, and indentured servants from around the world) as "property" or chattel. Well, it didn't end for everybody. In Texas it continued an extra two years because no one bothered to tell the Black slaves that they were now legally free by federal decree under Pres. Abe Lincoln. That post-Civil War freedom is what Juneteenth is commemorating.

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  Buddhism/Afrikan Wisdom (Valerie Mason-John)

  More people are slaves under the new system that replaced chattel slavery in the form of mass incarceration, harsh threats to avoid court cases during prosecution forcing people to plead guilty for lesser sentences of longer probationary periods, and a probation system that tracks, monitors, and enslaves mostly Blacks in a new way. See:
• Professor Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
• Dr. Joy DeGruy's Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing, 
• Valerie Mason-John's Afrikan Wisdom: New Voices Talk Black Liberation, Buddhism, and Beyond.

Joyfully Just (Dr. Majied)

Juneteenth is an important federal holiday in the United States, a date celebrating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans (and the many Native Blacks who were here before the Atlantic slave trade and not brought over, escaped, and assimilated to an utterly foreign environment. Blacks were in what is now the US 50,000 years ago when Austral-Aboriginals made it here from overseas.

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But there is so much more to Juneteenth that we can reflect on and unpack within that meaning. What is the significance of Juneteenth from a Dharma perspective?

White on white bullying at the golf course

Joy Degruy discusses PTSS, historical omissions

“Everyone can practice with and reflect on Juneteenth as a part of their liberation from the effects of enslavement, including waking up to the aspects of their lives that are impacted by the power, oppression, and privilege dynamics that are residuals of the enslavement of African heritage people,” writes Dr. Majied in her forthcoming book Joyfully Just, Black Wisdom and Buddhist Insights for Liberated Living.

Man, my struggle is for the ppl, the human ppl

“We can practice with Juneteenth as a portal to reclamation of connection and authentic living in the truths of our shared existence.”

In this hour-long conversation with Tricycle’s Associate Web Editor Amanda Lim Patton, Buddhist mental health therapist, professor of social work, and inclusivity and equity consultant Dr. Majied joins to explore how the residuals of slavery in this country and globally compromise our experience of and insight into interdependence, the connection we all share.

Can we laugh with Black comic's observations?

US Native American Poet Laureate Joy Harjo

Dr. Majied discusses the significance of Juneteenth; what Buddhism says about emancipation, liberation, and freedom; the parallels between Buddhism and Black wisdom traditions; healing the ongoing impacts of intergenerational trauma and finding inner freedom, more.

Tricycle is glad to offer this event free of charge. One can make a donation here: tricycle.org/donate

(Lyrics) What is Kendrick Lamar rapping in "They Not Like Us"?

• Black Lives Matter
• American Civil Liberties Union
• RIP Willie Mays, greatest baseball player
• Dr. Joy Degruy discusses Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome

Pure joy helps us look younger? Think you're falling in love? Medieval monks had worms?

• Kendrick Lamar via and Mac Esayne, Zechs6437, and ISmokeHipHopLive; Pearl Fountain; Tricycle (YouTube), Juneteenth 2023; Crystal Quintero, CC Liu, Pfc. Sandoval, Seth Auberon, Shauna Schwartz (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly