Juneteenth
Am not a fan of holidays, how they get watered down and stray from their original intent, how Easter isn’t about bunnies and chicks and Christmas isn’t about santa and stockings and Juneteenth isn’t about if Walmart is still open.
I don’t know how to celebrate freedom when I still can’t accept the fact that slavery even happened. That it was condoned, embraced, seemed entirely natural and rational and for the greater good. I can usually find a place to stand in the middle of heavy issues and see both sides but here I cannot.
I’m happy that it ended, I’m horrified it began, I can’t rectify any feeling in between, I don’t know how to feel but am pretty sure it feels like when people say, “Happy Memorial Day” as they chomp into their burger. It is not a day of happiness, to consider the dead, so many dead, and we find a way to make their sacrifice meaningful but I don’t believe bloodshed is the answer to any of our human difficulties and predicaments.
Some may think wishing, hoping for a peaceful planet is ridiculously naive, but I can’t think of any other way to survive as a species. Let us never “get used to” oppression and enslavement and let us never go silent and say it doesn’t concern us. A great many wise thinkers have stated, If one of us isn’t free, none of us are free. Food for thought, at our gatherings
Peace and blessings to all. Putting away soapbox.
On June 17, 2021, President Biden signed into law Senate Bill 475 making Juneteenth a federal holiday. It is the first federal holiday established since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983.
