El Paso: Black History Parade

El Paso Black History Parade, El Paso, Texas. February 2017.

February 25, 2017


The sky was a blue that spoke of Delft candles, blue plate specials, true blue.

It was the day of El Paso's Black History Parade. The link to the left has better photos than I do. Take a look there.

El Paso Black History Parade, El Paso, Texas. February 2017.

Wiggly-waggly china berries distracted me on the way to the parade.


A gentleman bore a magnificent cane.

El Paso Black History Parade, El Paso, Texas. February 2017.

Princesses and queens presided over things, waving to appreciative subjects along the sidelines. A tender quote from a pageant contestant, Desiree Anderson, via KVIA: "This is a great opportunity to love ourselves."

I saw a number of Junior ROTC units.

El Paso Black History Parade, El Paso, Texas. February 2017.

El Paso Black History Parade, El Paso, Texas. February 2017.

In fact, there was such a strong presence of military youth units, it provoked questions about recruiting disproportionately low-income students of color as cannon fodder.

But is that necessarily true?

2014: The Poverty Draft? Exploring the Role of Socioeconomic Status in U.S. Military Recruitment of Hispanic Students. A small study that focuses on high school students in the Rio Grande Valley. Authors: Jessica Lavariega Monforti and Adam McGlynn.

2013: Uncle Sam Wants Who? From Foreign Policy. Author: Rosa Brooks.


Also, El Paso has several military bases around it, therefore, a large military population that includes active, inactive, and retired folks.

So maybe it's logical that there'd be such a large visual presence of Junior ROTC units at the Black History Parade.

But just to be contrarian, I did also notice that the majority of the girls in the student military units didn't carry guns; gun-carrying fell almost exclusively to the boys.

I even asked one of the Junior ROTC advisors, in effect, "Why do so few girls carry guns"?

His first response was to correct me on my use of the word "guns" and to use "rifles" instead. And then he added something about how, well, they're working on that, or something.


A slide show below: