Juneteenth and 250 years of hypocrisy

Almost two weeks before the 250th celebration of the “founding” of the U.S., Juneteenth, a federal holiday, will take place on June 19. Making Juneteenth a federal holiday in 2021 was a long overdue recognition that on June 19, 1865, enslaved Black people were liberated in Galveston, Texas — two and a half years after the enactment of the Emancipation Proclamation made by President Abraham Lincoln. 

This historic day did not prevent Black people from being kidnapped from Texas to countries like Cuba or Brazil, where slavery still existed until the late 1880s, or even murdered by Texas enslavers. 

Juneteenth is viewed by Black communities as the “second day of independence,” following the U.S. “independence” from Britain in 1776. Even before Juneteenth — also known as “Freedom Day” — was made a legal holiday, Black people celebrated this anniversary countrywide with marches and rallies, along with an array of social and cultural events. 

Fast forward 161 years and the real meaning of Juneteenth — the ongoing fight for full social equality for Black people — continues to be under assault by an outright white supremacist U.S. president. Once #47 took office for the second time, he wasted little time laying off hundreds of thousands of federal workers, a hugely disproportionate number of them Black women. Many of these same workers were among those whose Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits were temporarily suspended. 

#47 passed an executive order to dismantle DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) — programs recognizing the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, Black History Month, Juneteenth and Women’s History Month, among others, for federal workers, many of them African American and/or gender oppressed. 

He also passed an executive order to remove all monuments and remnants from federally funded parks and other institutions that recognized even in a modest way the horrors of the enslavement of Black people. In other words, his administration seeks to whitewash and bury the Black struggle against white supremacy, then and now, in an effort to squash any forms of current and future resistance.

The struggle for social equality continues

Juneteenth will remain a constant symbolic reminder that Black people as an oppressed nation, no matter their location, face systemic white racism in all forms. There are too many examples to list, but it is important to highlight a few additional attacks on Black workers. 

The U.S. Supreme Court 6-3 reactionary ruling on April 29 severely limits the consideration of race in drawing voting maps, an important component of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. This legal attack ruled “unconstitutional” any redistricting of these maps that bolsters electoral victories for Black, Latine, Muslim or Indigenous candidates to gain greater political representation for marginalized communities in local and statewide elections. 

There is the ongoing police occupation of Black communities resulting in racial profiling, beatings, unwarranted arrests and killings of children, such as 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014. Vigilante murders steal lives, including 14-year-old Cyrus Carmack-Belton in 2023, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in 2012 and 15-year-old Latasha Harlins in 1991. Their killers were set free by biased jurors, another reminder of how Black life is dehumanized under white supremacy.

If you have not guessed by now, there is nothing for Black people — along with other people of color, including migrants and the working class in general — to celebrate on the 250th anniversary during the July 4 weekend. It will no doubt be a nauseating display of jingoistic, militaristic and patriotic bullsh-t pageantry in a desperate attempt to put on a pretty face to hide the ugliness of a decaying U.S. empire.