Juneteenth is yet another unsuccessful attempt to create a black holiday in America. It’s the day that news reached Galvanton, Texas that the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. In other words, it’s a day that doesn’t commemorate anything historically important. The day Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation or the day the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, was passed would be days to memorialize, but Juneteenth is literally nothing.
Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Contrary to popular belief, it did not free the slaves. It was an executive order that declared slavery illegal in all of the Confederate states. It did not ban slavery in the Union States and in fact, there were slaves in the Northern territories until the 13th Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865. Also, an executive order can’t ban slavery, so it was just a meaningless piece of paper.
The story goes that enslaved people in Galveston, Texas were unaware of the Emancipation Proclamation until June 19, 1865, when union troops gave them the news. Again, and I can’t stress this enough, slavery was not abolished at the time. It would be another 5 months before that happened.
Another weird thing about this is that the Civil War ended May 9, 1865 and yet somehow nobody told anyone in Texas. I get it that there was no Internet or TV but seriously, no one travelled to Texas from the rest of the country for over a month to let people know the war was over? And no news got through in the 2 and half years since the Emancipation Proclamation was signed?
Like I said, this is a lame attempt at making a nothing event into a major turning point of history. I do however understand the reason. If Emancipation Proclamation Day was a thing, people would have to celebrate that honkey Lincoln who wrote it. If 13th Amendment Day was a thing, they’d have to acknowledge all the white Republicans who are responsible for taking the slaves away from the democrats.
With Juneteenth, democrats can pretend they didn’t enslave black people and black people can pretend it wasn’t white Republicans who freed them.
Juneteenth also fails as a holiday because it has no universal appeal. Have you ever been invited to a Juneteenth BBQ? If you’re white, the answer is no. Same thing for Asians and Hispanics. It’s a holiday that democrats are trying to force on us, but we are also excluded because we’re white.
One of the major reasons why the holiday isn’t catching on is because there are no fun activities associated with it. We all know what to do on Christmas, Easter, 4th of July but what the f*ck are you supposed to do on Juneteenth?
In terms of ethnic celebrations, St. Patrick’s day is a time for everyone, not just the Irish, to eat corned beef and cabbage and get shit-faced while wearing green. Even Cinco de Mayo is catching on because drinking cerveza, doing shots of tequila, and scarfing down a carne asada burrito are appealing to more than just Mexicans.
If there were a black holiday where people ate fried chicken and got hammered, it would be embraced by the people. Unfortunately, that would be considered extremely racist, plus black people cry “cultural appropriation” any time white people take an interest in anything they do.
Kwanza is so weird that black people don’t even like it, MLK Day is a complete downer, and Juneteenth is stupid and exclusionary. Democrats are going to have to go back to the drawing board and come up with a black holiday that has general appeal.
