By Dr. Brandon A. A. J. Davis, Contributing Writer
Juneteenth has been a celebration of freedom, a day for the culture, and a connectional day of blackness since June 19, 1866. The one-day membership in the black community is strictly enforced. Not everyone is invited to this particular cookout. Before its federal recognition, scores of neighborhoods, towns, cities, and a few states celebrated this sacred and culturally significant day. Juneteenth, for many, has varied meanings. Families with deep ties to their ancestral history take this day seriously to teach their children what freedom means. To anchor their souls in the sacredness of being black and tie their minds and hearts to deistical values of faith, family, and community.
Since the killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, Juneteenth took on a phantom-like celebrity; it became an epiphenomenon of culture. Under the strain of COVID-19, the celebration of “Freedom Day” was for many across this nation a collective showing of blackness. Still, those unrealized freedoms yet to come to fruition permeated the minds of many. Juneteenth, in some ways, is a social and mental conundrum of perplexed ideations of what freedom means. Jamarr Brown, President of the Black Austin Democrats, makes this necessary point: “Juneteenth is a historical and symbolic representation of our liberation from institutionalized and legislative slavery and oppression.”
While the pendulum of social justice continues to swing between action and inaction, it is this opinion of this writer that too often, premature decisions based on what white people think we want are made in tandem with the audacity of their caucacity to willingly make bold and risky moves that in actuality only make them feel safe. The danger of “being woke” is that too many are still sleeping during the revolution of social and political change that addresses the discontent of our indentured servitude! No one had to tell us to celebrate Juneteenth, neither did we need a federal incentive to celebrate this sacred holiday. Black people sacrificed to honor the legacy of our bold and endearing ancestors and celebrate our heritage without regard to personal or social responsibilities.
While I wholeheartedly join the caravan of supporters appreciating this day being recognized by the American Republic, I am still perplexed by the list of ignored things continuously pushed aside in a vain attempt to quite a loudly dissatisfied people. Such bills as the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, first introduced in 1918 by Representative Leonidas C. Dyer. A revised version of that bill passed the US House of Representatives (410-4) on February 26, 2020. It was posthumously named the Emmett Till Antilynching Act but failed to pass in the US Senate. The list of “right now” concerns is long none more important than the passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, and the Voter Rights Bill.
The cultural misappropriation of Juneteenth as a byproduct of whitewashing stands in the shadow of Memorial Day as a testament to what white Americans do to holidays that are of cultural value to people of color. The Center for American Progress, in a jointly written article titled: “Systematic Inequality and American Democracy,” said the following on August 7, 2019:
“The United States is a contradiction. Its founding principles embrace the ideals of freedom and equality, but it is a nation built on the systematic exclusion and suppression of communities of color….”
How do we celebrate Juneteenth when we’ve yet to decriminalize a corrupt justice system that continues to lock up black people for marijuana, yet states and individual owners make millions hand over fist from legalized sales? How do we celebrate Juneteenth when the truth of African American history is still not taught in public school systems, but LGBTQ history is mandatory in California, New Jersey, Colorado, and Illinois? America continuously cherry-picks what black concerns they choose to care about; they perpetuate our pain and arrogantly tell us how to say ouch. I revel with pride as an AME minister because of the work of Deaconess Opal Lee. Still, somehow, I cannot disquiet my mind from the sounding brass and tinkling cymbals of the unaware dangers lying in the recess of some dubious forward progression. I quake in the unrealized fear that our premature celebration of this new federal holiday obfuscates our Godly vision causing us to miss the trees because of the forest.
