Happy Juneteenth

I have never been a proponent of celebrating Juneteenth.  I have long since held that celebrating Juneteenth was entirely appropriate for those who were enslaved and newly notified of their freedom.   For Blacks born into a system where their illiteracy was a mandate, and for those who could remember the sting of the evil slave owner’s whip decades after they were liberated from bondage, celebrating Juneteenth was more important than Christmas, worshipping a blond-haired, blue-eyed savior who promised salvation after a life of pain.  For them, June 19th symbolized the end of an era where the enslaved were considered less than human, where they were finally free. 

 

It was my very strong opinion for contemporary Africans born in AmeriKKKa to celebrate Juneteenth, with full access to the knowledge that our ancestor’s freedom was intentionally and deceptively kept from them for two and a half years, with the understanding that white human traffickers profited and capitalized from the unlawful captivity of enslaved Americans, is disrespectful to our ancestors.   It remains my very strong belief that descendants of those criminal human traffickers should be striped of their wealth, every single cent, because it was all born of the original sin, the enslavement of my ancestors. 

 

I was today years old when I found out that white human traffickers, slave owners in states where the enslaved were to be liberated in a timely manner, consistent with the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, moved their farming operations to Texas to deliberately to continue to profit from slave labor.  That’s evil on a level that is beyond my comprehension. 

 

You see, when white people think of slavery, when they see the images of the fatigued, down-trodden, dark-skinned slaves with wide noses and full lips, the scars raised from their skin, they don’t see human beings, they see ugly animals, things to be spat up and abused.  I see my family.  I see my blood.  I intimately feel the pain or rape, of separation from your family, of torture and laboring from sun up to sun down with no reward or compensation.  I see my heritage, my identity, my culture.  I see my great- great-grandparents and my great-great-grandchildren.  I am the enslaved in the past, present, and future. 

 

Day after day, white men call me a nigger.  Sometimes the motivation is to incite me to anger in a game of emotional manipulation.  At times, when I challenge their arrogant assertions that racism ended when Obama was elected, or when I call out their offensive and racist core beliefs, they arrogantly call me a nigger without any irony whatsoever.  If I had a dime for every time a white man called me a nigger when I tell them not to objectify Black men by referring to them as BBC but to refer to them as MEN I would have enough money to buy the freedom of several of my enslaved ancestors.  Daily, white men call me racist nigger bitch when I speak the truth about the inherent inferiority of a race of people who committed the greatest crime against humanity ever committed. You see, for the vast majority of white men who call me a nigger, they believe that the fact that the blood of their ancestors flowing through their veins, ancestors who bought, sold, traded, tortured, raped, branded, lynched, and murdered Black people like it was entertainment to them, they believe that makes them inherently superior to me.  They not only call me a nigger, they believe I’m a nigger because my ancestors built this nation while their lazy, evil ancestors profited from it. 

 

So today, when Republicans are desperately manipulating and scheming to deprive me of my right to vote, my Constitutional RIGHT, not a privilege that I have to earn like I’m a slave on the plantation but rights already afforded me, I celebrate Juneteenth. 

 

Today, when racist legislators are terrified of AmeriKKKa’s true history of perilous racism coming to light, making deals behind closed doors with Trillionaire donors to prevent schools from teaching that slavery even existed, terrified that learning about the true horrors of slavery will open the door to all their magical lies and deceptions coming to light, I celebrate Juneteenth. 

 

In 2021, when white people cheer and celebrate the deaths of unarmed Blacks in the street, when they deny and justify systemic racism and blame its victims for our oppression, indicating their greatest desire is to go back to the days when they could own, buy, and sell me, treating my life like a piece of property, I lift my voice and say that, “We shall overcome, someday, but today, I celebrate Juneteenth.”

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1d5hUA8Jd4