Happy Juneteenth

I don't know when I learned of Juneteenth, but I know it was when I was already an adult, not in history class as a child. It's amazing how little history of black culture was taught. I could also say that women's history wasn't taught enough...I learned about the 19th Amendment on Schoolhouse Rock. I hope this is different now in schools, but I'm guessing it doesn't go as far as it should for the 21st century.

Everyone celebrates July 4 in the USA, to commemorate the victory of the colonies over England, but it really just celebrates the victory of white colonists, since black people were left enslaved here—there was no victory for them. June 19th, however, became an important date starting after the Civil War for the freed people living in Texas. You can read more about the history here, in a PBS article that I've excerpted below, by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The boldface type is mine.

While national black leaders continued to debate the importance of remembering other milestone anniversaries, the freed people of Texas went about the business of celebrating their local version of Emancipation Day. For them, Juneteenth was, from its earliest incarnations, as Hayes Turner and others have recorded, a past that was “usable” as an occasion for gathering lost family members, measuring progress against freedom and inculcating rising generations with the values of self-improvement and racial uplift. This was accomplished through readings of the Emancipation Proclamation, religious sermons and spirituals, the preservation of slave food delicacies (always at the center: the almighty barbecue pit), as well as the incorporation of new games and traditions, from baseball to rodeos and, later, stock car races and overhead flights.

Juneteenth ought to be celebrated all through the US, since these are our forefathers as well. Just as history class skipped right over the important contributions of the women at NASA (that I had to learn from the movie Hidden Figures), it ignored the celebration of Juneteenth. In my education, even the Reconstruction period and the importance of the Jim Crow laws were skimmed over. I knew what they were but not how they were truly important. Emancipation Day is a huge deal and should be celebrated as such.

During this confusing, angry and downright disheartening time of Covid and the need for the BLM protests and the lack of intelligent leadership from anyone in the white house, when things seem absolutely crazy, I've been quietly digesting and reading up on politics, race, health and relationships. I feel overwhelmed, sad and angry at all the injustice I'm seeing. I felt like white people jumping in and saying "my black brothers and sisters" was almost trite or patronizing until I realized, we are supposed to be brothers and sisters in Christ...that the phrase "my brothers and sisters" indicates a fellowship of people on the same team, in the same family, on the same journey. We have to be close as family and help and support one another. 

It broke my heart to know that George Floyd called for his mother with his last breaths. I'm a mother and my children will always be my babies, no matter how old they get. I would move mountains to save them and protect them. So, too, I must see there are even more children who need me. Black children who are living lives I never really understood until now, though this has been happening forever. Children at the border who are separated from their mothers need me and Asian children who are discriminated against because Covid is a "Chinese" virus need me. 

We have to realize we are all more alike than different and that whenever any prejudiced notions pop up in our heads, it's important to analyze them. Why did I think that? Is there any basis to this thought? Where did I hear that? Do I know if this is true? Would I feel differently if the race of this person were different...and why or why not? 

My husband is a firefighter and so I know there are good police officers, but I know, too, that many of the departments have policies that need improving, that protecting each other's bad behavior is rampant and that the military can train soldiers in non-lethal detention...so our police departments on the whole must do better. And that individuals must do better. I would love to see a huge wave of women and minority young folks become police, firefighters, teachers and politicians right now. We need more varied voices in the room. I am hopeful that we will improve but I am afraid many of us won't. 

So, I will give money to charities like Save the Children, the ACLU, the NAACP legal fund, and Chinese for Affirmative Action. I will read to educate myself on my fellow citizens like Native Americans and how to help them here and read books on racism like the ones on this list for further education. I will learn about the health crisis so I can correct people who say black people don't wash their hands and that's why there are more cases in their communities. I will tell other white people that racist words or jokes are unacceptable. 

The hardest thing I had to do as a teenager was speaking up to my dad. He was talking about a friend of mine who people thought was gay but wasn't open about it (which would be impossible in the 1980s in my small town). Dad said his name in a singsong way to imply his femininity I guess. I knew what it meant—that my friend was gay and that being gay was worthy of contempt. I had let it go a few times and finally couldn't take it anymore. "Dad, he's my friend and I'd appreciate it if you didn't talk like that about him." 

I'd like to say I was more eloquent, that I educated him on homosexuality or something, but I was just a 16-year-old kid raised in small-town America with no more tools than he had. It was the only time I spoke up to my dad, to tell him he was wrong and I was upset with him. I'd like to think he respected me for it because he never did it again. It's ok to say, "that's not cool with me" with your friends or family, even if it means the whole family will give you crap about it and call you a snowflake or whatever. Because it's just time. Time to act like grown-ups and stop picking on people to prove you're better than they are. Because that's what it feels like. You can't tear other people down to feel superior. We have to be better. 

Juneteenth is a celebration of freedom, and it rightly deserves its place in history books. I know we cannot wait to be free from the fear of corona virus, to be free from violence and ignorance, we cannot wait to be free to just live and love and be who we are. It is my greatest wish that we grow from these dark times, that love will win and peace will come and we will learn that we are better for learning these painful lessons. 

Happy Friday, with hope in my heart,
Chark