Happy Juneteenth no matter what color you are and regardless of whether you know exactly why it's a federal holiday.
My own feelings are that if the Italians can have Columbus Day, and the Germans celebrate Von Steuben Day, and the Irish stumble in a fog through St. Patrick's Day, why not Juneteenth? I never need an excuse to celebrate (even if we don't know exactly what we're celebrating on June 19).
I think it appropriate to call June 19 "Emancipation Day." Even if Emancipation didn't actually occur for months after the proclamation arrived in Galveston, Texas, it's as good a date as any to pop a cork and dance a jig to recognize the end of chattel slavery. Modern America would never have existed with slavery so in a sense, we can say that on Juneteenth, we're celebrating the birth of Modern America.
Unfortunately, there are some black people who choose to grumble about the Juneteenth celebration including us white folk.
Attention white people…
— Melina Abdullah (@DocMellyMel) June 13, 2022
Please don’t ask if you can come to the cookout…#Juneteenth is freedom day for Black folks.
It should be #Reparations day for white folks.
Ms. Abdullah is a Pan-African Studies Professor and might need a lesson on how to celebrate an American holiday.
Dear black people. Please don’t ask if you can come to the cookout. If we know each other you’re already invited. Whatever day it is. Come on over. Maybe bring that covered dish your wife makes, that stuff is delicious! Otherwise grab a beer and a burger. It’s just a cookout.
— AmErican (@Flipper628) June 14, 2022
Fixed it.
Still don't understand why white people get juneteenth off instead of having to work for free for a day in solidarity with my ancestors
— I Smoked Infowars (@BlackKnight10k) June 18, 2024
They aren't my ancestors, that's why. I pity them and you — them for having to endure the unendurable and you for being unendurably stupid.
White people should be doing double shifts on Juneteenth https://t.co/ImnRoJmOYH
— Kar (@karlogan_) June 13, 2024
There are too many to list, but all show an unbridled prejudice and racial bigotry by black people toward white people. After what was supposed to be a racial reckoning, at a time when the ideas of diversity and inclusion have become an integral part of society, there is a significant amount of anti-white bigotry that exists in this country that regularly gets ignored.
The kind of racist comments made above would cause significant controversy if they were made by white people talking about black people. The same should hold when it is black people talking about white people. Decades of radical indoctrination in schools and other cultural institutions in society have taught many black people to be resentful and hateful toward white people for something that happened over 150 years ago that affected no one living today. It’s indicative of just how radicalized many in the country have become.
White people should not be made to feel guilty or be the victims of resentment over things people did decades and centuries ago. Such rhetoric does nothing to promote racial equality.
It's more than slavery, as the people supporting reparations like to point out. There's an ongoing, 150-year, "systematic" racial bias, white privilege, unequal opportunity, Jim Crow, and racial oppression that needs to be dealt with. But you can't assign guilt based solely on race. It turns the entire concept of "guilt" on its head.
Reparations and bribes won't solve it. An apology by white people would be ludicrous. History is "history" for a reason: It's in the past. Trying to elicit feelings of guilt from people who weren't alive at the time that blacks were enslaved and who never consciously participated in any kind of black oppression is wrong.
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Collective guilt based on race is evil. We didn't even assign collective guilt to every German after World War II, even though the vast majority supported Hitler.
I'm sorry blacks feel resentful of their lot. But it's not my fault and I wish they would stop blaming me because of my race. If they did, they might be a lot happier and feel like celebrating "Emancipation Day" with all Americans of all colors.
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