Happy Juneteenth

Today is Juneteenth.

“What’s that?” you may ask.

Juneteenth celebrates the freeing of American slaves.  155 years ago, today - two and a half years AFTER the Emancipation Proclamation was signed and the Civil War was over.  Texas got word that slavery was over.  

Let us consult my favorite second brain, Wikipeidia, for further details...

“Juneteenth (a portmanteau of June and nineteenth), also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, and Cel-Liberation Day, is an American holiday celebrated annually on June 19. It commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union general Gordon Granger read federal orders in Galveston, Texas, that all previously enslaved people in Texas were free. Although the Emancipation Proclamation had formally freed them almost two and a half years earlier, and the American Civil War had largely ended with the defeat of the Confederate States in April, Texas was the most remote of the slave states, with a low presence of Union troops, so enforcement of the proclamation had been slow and inconsistent.

Celebrations date to 1866, at first involving church-centered community gatherings in Texas. It spread across the South and became more commercialized in the 1920s and 1930s, often centering on a food festival. During the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, it was eclipsed by the struggle for postwar civil rights, but grew in popularity again in the 1970s with a focus on African American freedom and arts. By the 21st century, Juneteenth was celebrated in most major cities across the United States. Activists are pushing Congress to recognize Juneteenth as a national holiday. Juneteenth is recognized as a state holiday or special day of observance in 47 of the 50 states.

Modern observance is primarily in local celebrations. Traditions include public readings of the Emancipation Proclamation, singing traditional songs such as "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" and "Lift Every Voice and Sing", and reading of works by noted African-American writers such as Ralph Ellison and Maya Angelou. Celebrations include rodeos, street fairs, cookouts, family reunions, park parties, historical reenactments, and Miss Juneteenth contests. The Mascogos, descendants of Black Seminoles, of Coahuila, Mexico, also celebrate Juneteenth.”

I first heard about Juneteenth around 2002ish.  I had not heard of the occasion prior to that and I had to do some investigating on the topic.  Now, either I was not in class when it was taught or it, simply, wasn’t taught.  It is, most likely, the latter.  There are so many things that have missed our history text books.  So, what is Juneteenth?  Juneteenth celebrates the last domino to fall concerning the news that slavery had been abolished.  It happened in, Galveston Texas.  Once Texas recognized the Emancipation Proclamation—slavery was over.  Unfortunately, Jim Crow started to go into effect soon afterwards reinforcing systemic oppression and segregation, but to victory of slavery being abolished deserves to be celebrated. The fresh horrors that Jim Crow would bring are staggering and helped pound a racial wedge through our society helping an already racist system become further segregated. Juneteenth should be a celebration.  In all honesty, it should replace Columbus Day as a National Holiday. 

Frankly, we have failed ourselves by not teaching our own history.  It’s been whitewashed.  Literally.  This needs to be recognized, taught, accepted, and learned.  Education is key to addressing systemic racism.  We must, therefore, educate.  Not tell fabrications, half-truths, or omit.  Our history needs to be acknowledged so that when someone says, “There is no such thing as systemic racism in America.” We can hear those words and know that this person is either ignorant of their own history or a bigot who benefits from keeping someone else down.  Ignorance and bigotry are staples of American culture.

This must end.

Happy Juneteenth.

Baratunde Rafiq Thurston's TED Talk

Baratunde Rafiq Thurston wears many hats.  All of them interesting ones, but, before we get to that you need to see his TED Talk, which can be found right here:"How to Deconstruct Racism, One Headline at a Time".

It's a little over 16 minutes long.

Go ahead.

I'll wait.

.

..

...

Finished?  It’s GREAT, RIGHT!?

I know!

TED introduces Mr. Thurston, as thus, "Baratunde Thurston has worked for The Onion, produced for The Daily Show, advised the Obama White House and cleaned bathrooms to pay for his Harvard education. He's the host of the iHeartMedia podcast Spit, wrote the New York Times bestseller How to Be Black and serves on the boards of BUILD and the Brooklyn Public Library. He makes media, delivers keynotes and promotes action with his unique blend of criticism, humor and optimism. He's most invested in topics of race, technology, democracy and climate, because the hard stuff has already been solved."

I find this worthy.  And, in these trying times, inspiring and hopeful.  COVID-19 will be the harbinger of a great many social and economic upheavals—but these upheavals are long overdue.  Inequality, systemic racism, hunger, poverty, healthcare, exploitation by the rich, education, injustice—these are things that were part of the old normal.  That old normal did not work for a great many people.  We must do better and now is the time to do so.  We have a chance to rebuild as we reopen (sensibly, scientifically).  The status quo doesn’t work now.  The truth is it didn’t work then, at least not for all.  It is a shame that progress has to look like destruction, but now is the time to rewrite the playbook.  NOW is the time to rebuild the whole narrative.

"We change the story by changing the action."

It is beyond time to change the story.

His Name Was George Floyd

I’ve been keeping a journal.  I call it, “Life During Quarantine”.  Very early on, I predicted "tremendous social and economic upheaval."  We are due.  It is undeniable, there are changes that must be made.  One of those issues that can no longer be ignored, is the issue of race.  We have a systemic racism problem here in the US.  We have a huge section of the American population who are living in a dystopia due to the color of their skin and there is a big chunk of white America that sees no problem at all due to the comfortable bubble we were gifted and grew up in. 

We must recognize this.

There are other things of note that are happening in the shadow of the coronavirus.  A man named George Floyd was murdered, on video, by a group of four police officers.  One of the police officers had his knee against Floyd’s neck.  Floyd is heard begging on the video to be let to breathe or to have some water, probably to open his throat again.  His words are ignored, and the officer keeps up the pressure on his neck.  Floyd stops talking.  Nine minutes pass.  He dies under the knee of this officer.  Did I mention that Mr. Floyd was black?

We have a horrible double standard in this country.  It exists.  There are marginalized communities from sea to shining sea and the majority of them are categorized by the color of their skin.  Marginalized for treatment under the law, for poverty, for opportunity, for healthcare, for everything.  The sad truth is most white people have no idea that there is anything amiss.  We have no idea that we are living on the bright side of dystopia.  Blissfully ignorant, tranquilly seduced into seeing that nothing is wrong with the way things are for me, so it must be alright for everyone.  This is a lie.  Suffering is real.  Racism is real.  Hate is real.  Fear is real.  We can pretend that they don’t exist and stay in our, “Live, Laugh, Love” bubble, but that is all an illusion. 

I’m no different.  I lived my life with rose-colored glasses on never suspecting once that they were on at all or that I was ever wearing them.  I saw cracks appear in the lenses when I was in my teens when I started to realize that injustice was real and that “and Justice for all”, only seemed to apply to those who could hire the best attorneys.  If you were poor, you get court appointed representation.  Then you live a little more, see a few more things, and, suddenly, deeply held beliefs in our system of law, government, and religion are inevitable to miss if your eyes are open.  It is getting harder to see through the cracks in those rose-colored glasses, but they are still on.  You are still a part of that comfortable entitlement of being white and, to a degree, you always will be—you’re white, after all.  You are not automatically thought of as a threat.  Something to fear, something to hate, something to be kept in place.  No, you have all the possibilities that American society offers splayed before you to explore.  Your future is bright, and you don’t even know how bright it truly is.  After all, it is your birthright, that blissful tranquility, that entitlement.  But life goes on, you stand on your own and you open your eyes further, there are too many cracks in the lenses to see properly now.  Since you can’t see out of them any longer, you now have a choice—you keep them on, try to buff out some of the scratches, and retreat to your comfort zone or you take them off. 

Suppose you take them off.  Time has passes, things have change, you’ve supported yourself a while now, you’ve met, worked, and befriended a host of people who are not the same shade of skin that you are.  You find that people are people, each with their own unique set of needs and desires—in other words, just like you.   You begin to hear their stories—tales of how they struggle, how they live, how they make do, how petrified they are for themselves or their children who may run into the wrong group of white people or, worse, a police officer who wants to ask them questions.  And their stories horrify you.  After all, you haven’t had the same inherent problems coming up in American society.  Why would you?  You’re white—with all the unseen advantages that brings.  What about the police?  As a kid, I was told that they were the, “good guys”, your friends—not the hand of a system designed to keep you where you are, your oppressors, or your executioners.  This is the dystopian, oppressed, reality for a large section of America.  Sure—provisos all around—but the fact is, those who enforce the law (just or unjust) are part of the machine—good or bad.  They are the enforcers and, in some cases, the oppressors.  There are good police officers.  They are the ones who, “Serve and Protect”.  The ones who want to make their communities better, safer places for everyone.  I must hope that the majority of them have this creed in their hearts.  However, I can only hope. 

The ongoing slaughter of black men is what the, “Black Lives Matter” movement is about.  Black lives that are threatened by police officers.  Therefore, Colin Kaepernich took a knee.  To protest black men being slaughtered.  This upset an entitled nation of white people.  Some of whom went bug-nuts crazy.  After all, why should an athlete who is paid to entertain me have any reason to spoil my fun?  What does HE have to protest?  A great many things, in all reality, a great many things.  White people were incensed that something as trivial as black lives could spoil their football game!  They started to take things in other directions, “It disrespects that flag, is what it does!” or, “I didn’t fight in the war just so a …football player can disrespect Old Glory!”  Ironically, free speech was one of the things that, we are told, war defends.  Oh well, Mr. Kaepernich pissed off a lot of white people.  He was followed by other players—which pissed off more white people.  It pissed off the police because, how dare the black population be upset at us for killing them so often?  The police formed the, “Blue Lives Matter” to protest the “Black Lives Matter” protest.  Then the entitlement of a white nation kicks into overdrive for a segment of society that just wants things to remain the same; people who are all too happy with their own situations to care about someone else’s.  Especially if that someone else is a black person.  We collectively forget until the next black man is killed.

Something has to change.   

We have a race problem here in America, 2020.  It stretches back beyond the slave trade, which was alive before America existed.  Our system is not set up for justice for all.  It is set up to keep those in power in power, and, shock and awe, that is a group of old, rich, white men.  It is an injustice that we cannot afford to keep sweeping under the rug.  As a society we must take ownership of the past, the evils that have been done, recognize the wrongs that have been and continue to be done.  We need to recognize systemic racism so that we can stop it.  We must check our own biases.  Realize where we are and be willing to be the people that we should be.  We need to acknowledge this.  We need make amends, and we need to move forward.  The American experiment is for ALL of us—regardless of the color of our skin.  

Peaceful protests over George Floyd’s death have escalated to, “rioting”.  I am reminded of the words of Martin Luther King Jr., when he said, “A riot is the language of the unheard”.  Everyone is remembering that one now—but it needs to be remembered.  It is far beyond time that they were heard.  We are all in this together.  Let us not give in to the forces that benefit from keeping us apart.  I was moved by the pleas from Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, the Mayor of Atlanta, Georgia.  Her heart breaks for her city.

Peaceful protests have escalated to chaos all over the country.  From sea to shining sea.  I have heard community leaders say time and time again, calling for the violence to stop, and to go home, to fill out the census, and then go out and vote.   “Beat them at the voting booths”, I heard one man say. 

My rose-colored glasses are gone.  It was a collection of real-life circumstances and experiences that scratched the lenses.  I do not pretend to know what it is like for a person of color here in America.  I have some ideas—but they are only that, ideas.  I have a good imagination, but that only goes so far.  The reality of the situation is that we can no longer turn a blind eye to racial injustice.  We must recognize systemic racism and stop it.

Yesterday, in the city of Camden, NJ as the protesters approached a group of police the officers held up their own, “Black Lives Matter” signs and joined them in their march.  There was another group of protesters from Coral Gables, Florida who when they came upon police officers both the protesters and the police took knees.  There are examples of similar stories happening all over the country.  Unfortunately, there are bad things happening too.  I can’t condone violence or rioting; however, I agree with the protesters, George Floyd is where this needs to stop.  And, for the record, I am not anti-cop.  The good ones do a job I could never do.  There is so much pressure riding on their shoulders.  The good ones ‘serve and protect’ for the betterment of their communities—no matter what shade of skin the people in their districts may have.  The world is a better place because the good ones are there. 

So, how do we stop the riots?  We start living by our own ideals—understanding that, “All men are created equal”, that “We The People” make up this nation, and that everyone should have, “liberty and justice for all”.  Those ideals can’t be for the entitled few—they must be for all.  This is not an us verses them scenario.  We are all in this together—black, white, & everything in between—police, civilians, protesters, and community leaders.  Times such as these force us to grow and, God knows, we need to.  This is a time for growth.  It is long overdue.