American Passover

Juneteenth is a great American holiday.

By
245

Dear Reader (Including the sleeper FBI agents waiting for their moment to storm The Dispatch),

Happy Juneteenth (Observed)!

If you asked me in the abstract whether America needed another federal holiday, I’d have said, “No.” After the pandemic, America doesn’t need more time off, it needs to get back to work. But, if you asked me if Juneteenth should be a federal holiday, I’d have said, “Sure.” Juneteenth is a good thing for all Americans, not just black Americans, to celebrate.

Apparently some people disagree.

Create a free account
Access additional articles and newsletters for no cost, no credit card information needed. Continue ALREADY HAVE AN ACCOUNT? SIGN IN
245
By
Comments (245)
Join The Dispatch to participate in the comments.
 
  1. Avatar photo
    Earl King

    The other day I got dunked on by a few who took umbrage at my assessment regarding Juneteeth. I had never been aware of the day....I studied both American History and Political Science and had never heard of it. I'm still of the mind that most Americans find it pretty obscure.

    I stated that it was not up to me to decide what moments in Black American History should be celebrated or honored. I did point out that the 13th Amendment actually marked the end of "codified" slavery and properly observed there is no special Day set aside to honor the hundreds of thousands of "white" Americans who died for the "ideal" Jonah discussed here.

    Based on the tearing down of statutes...I believe Lincoln was one in particular that some wanted to tear down....

    We can all agree that Native Americans lost their battle to keep control of their own destiny in our country. The Trail of Tears is a story of a national screwing over of some very honorable Cherokee's at the hands of Andrew Jackson. And this is my point. There are many histories in America. The Chinese who were treated poorly that built the Union Pacific Railroad. The Japanese Americans who were interned during WWII. Jews, Gays, and many other minorities have been treated poorly in our past. Do we build monuments to them so they can feel acknowledged?
    I truly am mystified that we do not have indigenous people day. No I don't think dumping Columbus and renaming the day is right. But if we are going to start acknowledging all our past screwing of various peoples it's going to be a lot of Holidays. Will an indigenous people days solve the problems of poor who live on reservations? No. People talk about the generational wealth that Black Americans missed out on due to being slaves. The exact same could be said of Native Americans.

    I suspect I will never put Juneteenth on the same level as July 4th...or Memorial Day. I just continue to worry that instead of bringing the country to a shared moment and a shared experience we'll continue to build silos for our varied populations.

    MLK was a great man...and to that I can tip my hat.....but he will always mean more to African Americans than to any white American. I suspect the same will be true with Juneteenth. I have no doubt a Native American holiday is in the works and there probably should be one....

    But where does it end? I don't have a dog in this fight...other than being 100% certain that continuing to separate Americans in to color, ethnicity, heritage and religion will not bring us together as a nation. I also do not think the "black" experience is any worse nor and better than the Native American experience. How do we right all those other wrongs and are Holidays the answer.

    Finally as Jonah correctly points out slavery was a human thing and it was world wide. Do Jews expect "equity" from the Italians or Egyptians? Are some Saxons still waiting for an apology from the Normans? How far back do we as humans go to ask for reparations for history?

    I'd love to hope that this holiday makes Black Americans feel more wanted or honored or valued or acknowledged.....All I do know is that more black kids will die by the end of this weekend in Chicago...and Juneteenth does nothing to fix those deaths. You see we are always doing the least we can do, the easiest things rather than fixing the problem. The reason? We cannot find common ground.


    Collapse
    1. Andrew M

      I find it interesting you claim there's no holiday recognizing those who died in the Civil War. Memorial Day began as Decoration Day during the Civil War to recognize those killed in the war.

      https://www.britannica.com/video/216652/Overview-why-we-celebrate-Memorial-Day

      Collapse
      1. Avatar photo
        Earl King

        The day has a much more to do with remembering all our war dead than specifically Civil War dead. I believe Veterans Day was a tribute to WWI. Also known as Armistice Day. To my knowledge there is no current Day given to the Union Troops other than as part of Memorial Day honoring those who died.

        Collapse
        1. Andrew M

          The day *now* has much more to do with remembering all our war dead than specifically the Civil War dead, but it began as a specific remembrance of Civil War dead. Just as we don't have a specific day for remembering those who died in the War of 1812, or the Spanish-American War, or the Korean War, or Vietnam, Gulf War 1, etc. And as you say Veteran's Day started out smaller with recognition of a specific issue and evolved to be what it is today. Perhaps Juneteenth is the same, a recognition of one milestone that may, in time, morph to be a recognition of all the times we made progress in reconciliation for past misdeeds. I don't see Juneteenth as a holiday designed to "continue to separate Americans [by] color, ethnicity, heritage and religion..." (to quote your post above) but rather to celebrate the period when we started to try to become more inclusive of the various peoples living in this country. It's a process that continues, and is nowhere near being complete. I'm all for the evolution of holidays, and like Jonah wrote I don't see how that can be seen as anything but good.

          Collapse
  2. Avatar photo
    Murrayprof

    This is true but the idea that Gibson had people thinking critically about history is a stretch to me given the Patriot glaring inaccuracy. I've heard the Patriot describes as Braveheart with pants. All of his films are celebrations of violence. Apocolypto and The Passion of the Christ are the same movie different religion.

    Collapse
  3. Avatar photo
    Phil H

    re: Juneteenth as a competitor to the Forth of July: Nonsense.

    While I agree we have too many federal holidays, Juneteenth makes a fine holiday. Rather than competing with the Fourth, it is nicely bookended between Memorial Day and the Fourth. Juneteenth can join them as patriotic holidays.

    Collapse
  4. Brett

    I tried really hard to subscribe to the Legendary Times magazine the Ancient Aliens guy claims to be the editor of. As far as I could gather it does not actually exist.

    Collapse
  5. Shelby.Emmett13

    My white grandfather always had us celebrate juneteenth...way before he had a biracial granddaughter. If you'd like suggestions on how to celebrate, this is what we did:

    1. He was a wwii marine so we start the day raising the flag.
    2. Make a great breakfast
    3. Watch the movie Glory. (Best civil war movie ever!)
    4. Then he would share some cool u.s. history stories and we would have a BBQ.
    5. That night we would read a book together about history and discuss it over dinner for the next few weeks.
    6. Sunday we would go to church and he would sing old gospel songs.

    He did this because he loved American history and loved a good backyard BBQ. And in the process I learned about my history, our history, and how to critically think about ideals, principles, progress and reality.

    Collapse
    1. UpstateCol

      Hi Emma I hope you had a great Juneteenth and so many more to come and thanks for the movie suggestion.

      Collapse
  6. UpstateCol

    “holiday should not be called “Juneteenth National Independence Day”

    I am very happy with using “Independence “ in the name of this celebration. I feel this way because independence implies individualism. It’s about time Black people start feeling a greater sense of individualism instead of this community crap that they get drummed into their heads by government , college intellectuals, main stream media , Marxist radicals and so on.
    Slavery is certainly the most dehumanizing thing that a country can have by law but convincing people to deny their own individualism with this Marxist mantra is near as dehumanizing .Telling Black people what to think has to be the HIGHEST form of white supremacy.

    Collapse
  7. Avatar photo
    Kevin Johnson

    Good piece. Great to see you again quoting the great Thomas Sowell. I have missed him, or those who follow in his tradition, such as Jason Riley, commenting at The Dispatch about the CRT/“anti-racism” con (my word.). I love all of your views on these things, including David’s cutting critiques of how NOT to fight these particular bad ideas. But while The Dispatch/Remnant has featured Dr. Sowell and John McWhorter, it has been only on other issues (education and linguistics.).

    Don’t you think these and other thinkers, including Black intellectuals (Shelby Steele, Glenn Lowry) have something to add on CRT/“anti-racism”? Sowell has spent decades arguing that the activist class failed to address common sense views held by many blacks. As an early Remnant and TD member, I say with love and respect that it looks really odd that you don’t find space for the “Sowell view” on CRT/“anti-racism.” The legacy media sells the idea that one must either support the CRT/anti-racism narrative or be against racial progress. Seems to me TD is missing some giant and vital voices. Thanks for all you do.

    Collapse
  8. Avatar photo
    Carson J.

    The reason Chip Roy didn't support the Juneteenth bill is because that's literally his MO: He "supported impeaching Trump", just not the impeachment bill from the house. He "supported a Jan 6 commission," just not the one house Democrats and Republicans agreed on. He weasels his way out of committing to anything that might be remotely controversial with his district.

    Collapse
  9. Avatar photo
    Bill Nelson

    “...not every victory for conservatives is a victory for Republicans.”
    Exactly why I never voted for Trump, as well as several other republicans. I am sure that the same could be said of progressives and democrats, but I think that democrats are a bit happier to go in that direction.
    But also keep in mind that not every victory for an ideology ends up being to the betterment of that ideology.

    Collapse
  10. Avatar photo
    Luke Thompson (not that one)

    "Now, I don’t like the phrase “we yield them to a government,” but it’ll pass as a mangling of Lockeanism."

    I don't think it's a mangling of Lockeanism. It's straight Rousseauianism. Part of the reason the DoI was clear that we have unalienable rights is that we can't yield them to the government. That way leads to totalitarianism, in the literal sense.

    Collapse
Load More