Juneteenth 2021

What has happened since last year?

Surprisingly, a lot! Annnndddd…not so much. Allow me to explain…

Around this time last year, I posted about how I hadn’t even heard of Juneteenth until I was an adult and how it was celebrated (read about that here). Later, in July, I would post an Independence Day digital drawing since I sensed there was some reawakening happening after George Floyd’s death was shown to the masses by social media.

So, since Juneteenth 2020…

George Floyd’s primary murderer, Derek Chauvin, was brought to justice.
Breonna Taylor’s murderers were not brought to justice. Extra Fun fact: They weren’t even tried for her death.
We elected a new president.
We witnessed a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol...which was rapidly followed my major attempts to suppress voting of certain groups of people and a watering down of said insurrection.
In less than a year after seeing an uptick on violence committed against Asian people all over the news, the US Government passed an Anti Asian Hate bill. However, one of our courts immediately released an Asian man on a laughable $10,000 bail who shot at a 6-year old black boy until the public complained about the lax treatment …It’s just one of many cases proving once again that Black lives don’t matter to all lives and why the phrase, “Black Lives Matter” still needs to be used until it does.
We’ve had protests which saw the removal of many statues and monumental landmarks that fondly memorialized our racist past.
We’ve continued to have domestic terrorism that the government finally concedes has been almost entirely at the hands of white supremacists.
We’ve seen aggressive legislation to prohibit the racist history of the United States being discussed in schools.
This past week, the US government made Juneteenth a national holiday.

Now these last two points are somewhat oxymoronic. But, that very last one has had some mixed reviews in the Black court of public opinion because of...pretty much every other point.

For some, the symbolism of making Juneteenth a national holiday was at least a step. For others, as performance seems to be the order of the day, it was too little, too late…and definitely not enough.

I was divided myself.

On one hand, of course I’m glad that the day an enslaved people-my people-became free is now nationally recognized. In my opinion, it actually should have always been. But that that is a good thing is of no question to me.

Still...there is something to the argument that while there can be beauty in symbolism, there’s nothing pretty about simultaneously refusing to seriously address police violence against black and brown people, blocking critical race theory’s role in education (or even just an accurate version of American history), promoting voter rights suppression, etc., and all of it getting swept under the rug for this one act that has no ability to truly move the needle in bettering the lives of black people in this country or repairing the lasting harm done to them.

I think DL Hughley, a Black American comedian put it best. In a recent interview, he described it as getting an Amazon order that you didn’t order...You’re going to keep it, but you still want your original order.

So, what it amounts to is, we all can celebrate the day enslaved Black people in the U.S. became free...But we can’t learn the whole history in our schools? We can’t mention former enslavement resulting in a bloody war and eventually the release of a people as part of U.S. History? We can’t trace how slavery lead to the racism that became so entrenched in our society that it showed up in every segment of government, law enforcement, economy, and culture, and is largely behind the social and political unrest we see now? If we can’t do that, how can we speak to dismantling it to lead to a better future for everyone?

Sigh.

For some, they’re not here for it…the symbolism…the hypocrisy…none of it. But, take a look at this from the link above on the removal of statues across the country…

In his best-selling memoir, In The Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History, former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu recounts the volatile emotions stirred when he orchestrated the removal of four highly visible Confederate monuments from his city in 2017. He called the decision an important step toward racial justice and healing.
“Symbols matter. We use them in telling the stories of our past and who we are, and we choose them carefully. Once I learned the real history of these statues, I knew there was only one path forward, and that meant making straight what was crooked, making right what was wrong. It starts with telling the truth about the past,” wrote Landrieu.
-quoted from National Geographic

Even simple, symbolic gestures can have an impact over time. It begins to tell the truth (so long as we can tell it…).

In the meantime, until the actions catch up to the symbols, what I value most about my people remains true...We are a persevering breed of folk. We will thrive despite the lack of attention toward true, needle-moving changes for Black people to enjoy the promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

We will continue to speak our truths while maintaining our joy.

I’m certain, this year, lettering artists will still be making art around this topic as they do others that are important to the BIPOC community. Check out the post of one of my favorite letterers on this subject. @kevinadamamsdesigns and while you’re at it, grab the t-shirt (pictured below).