"Juneteenth"

Tomorrow is June 19.  This date is verbally contracted, in a cute little device, to "Juneteenth."  June 19 is the date in 1864 or 1865 when the last of the slaves were freed.  Black Americans -- African Americans -- informally celebrate it as what feels to them like the real marker of emancipation day, or independence day.  As of this year, the day will be made a federal holiday, now that it's about 150 years later.

And there's some resistance to the idea that Juneteenth should be dedicated this way.  For the purpose, and benefit, of this discussion, I'm going to set aside what group of people are moved to resist this dedication.

The fact is that we here in the United States already have an "Independence Day."  It's July 4.  "We" were all subjects of the British crown, until many of "us" no longer wanted to be, and we felt mistreated and unappreciated.  We suffered indignities like "taxation without representation."  We thought that was unfair, and it occurred to us that since we were here, doing all the "heavy lifting," we shouldn't have to take orders from, and diminish ourselves in fealty to, the British crown.  Even though we all started out as Britons ourselves, and all we wanted was a little more liberty.  Specifically, we didn't want the British crown imposing its religious approaches on us, since we didn't happen to share the crown's religious approach.  We wanted the liberty to choose our own religious approach, or maybe none.  So we chose, accepting all the risks, to come here.

Not all of us were dissatisfied with being subjects of the crown.  But most of us were.  So we fought for our independence, won it, cemented our victory in 1812, and have never looked back.  We're now very close allies with Great Britain, we've made whatever accomplishments we wanted to make, and we're much appreciated -- even adored, and very highly esteemed -- by our old masters.  Neither we nor they would have it any other way, and certainly not the way it was.  The fact is that if any Brits were here on July 4, they'd not only get it, and appreciate it, but they'd probably enjoy the celebration with us.

And after that, we as a country have invited other unhappy people to come here and be free with us.  It's true we've been a little selective, and sometimes grudging, about the invitation, but we mostly keep stirring the "melting pot."

In fact, everyone who's in this country came here looking for freedom and a better life.  Everyone, that is, except the people who were already here, and whom we have horribly manhandled, and except the Africans.  They didn't choose to come here, looking for a better life and freedom.  They already had a better life and freedom.  We just kidnapped them, forced them to come here, gave them a worse life, and took away their freedom.  We also took away their dignity, their sense of family, and generally any idea most of them had that there was any possibility for them here.  Their most glaring opportunity here was to be mistreated.  This opportunity was partially regionally accentuated, but parts of it were nationwide (like their opportunity to be subjected to laws, but not to be allowed to vote for the people who made the laws), until the biggest push to end the mistreatment of them, which was represented by the Civil War.  And they weren't mistreated by "us" the way "we" were mistreated by the British.  Oh, no, they were treated vastly worse than that.  In fact, "we" continued to mistreat them even after "Juneteenth," when they were "freed," and we continue generally to mistreat them today.  The way "we" were treated by the British, leading to the American War of Independence, was not nearly as bad as African Americans are treated even today, 150 years after "Juneteenth."  And when they complain about the continued mistreatment, with the civil rights movement, or "Black Lives Matter" movement, some of us punish them for being disruptive.  And ungrateful.  They are disadvantaged more or less at every turn, and we expect them to...know their place.  We don't whip them or lynch them with abandon, as some of us did in the past, but some of us still shoot them on sight, or otherwise execute them, when they have have often done little or nothing wrong.  (And certainly not enough to deserve summary assassination.)  They're given the message that they shouldn't complain about that, either, because the people who shoot them or otherwise execute them are designated as protectors.  Not their protectors, of course, but supposedly someone's protectors.

It's sad, and unfortunate, to say that we still have a very long way to go in this country.  A recent Executive initiative to make special loans available to black farmers was met with derision from some who proposed that caucasian farmers were thus disadvantaged, and who conveniently forgot, or simply didn't know, that loans made available to farmers a few decades ago were selectively withheld from black farmers.

The currently amplified suggestion that school students should learn about the systematic suppression and abuse of black people, who were critical to many of this country's accomplishments, is also getting a lot of resistance.  The Germans very clearly understand what they did wrong.  They have apologized.  They paid reparations.  They can't undo it, but they can not do it again.  What's wrong with us?

There are a lot of things black people in this country could very properly want, and demand.  They are very much owed.  If one thing that would make them feel very slightly better at the moment is their own independence day, we should declare the one they want, without question and without thought.  And with humility and our own embarrassment, for putting them in such a position in the first place.  Let that be a very tiny gesture, and a miniscule part of our effort to rebuild with them all that we have spent such a long time destroying.  We can't undo what we did any more than the Germans could.  But if we understand what we did wrong, apologize, and stop doing it, it's the best we can do.  For the sake of declaring a position, I, for one, am not in favor of paying reparations.  First, there's not enough we could pay anyone for the damage we did.  Second, if we chose some number, like $1B, or $100M, or $10M, or even just $1M per black person in this country, it would be too much to handle, and they would only lose it, like most people who get too much money they can't handle, like lottery winners, athletes and others.  The best we can do is re-provide what we took away, and finally get out of the way.  They can make their own way, if we let them.

Happy Juneteenth.