Juneteenth

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In principle, this holiday seems worthy.  We are celebrating the end of slavery.  This is a good thing.

The facts get a little dodgy, though.  The holiday is symbolically linked to the U.S. army's pronouncement of the Emancipation Proclamation to the enslaved people of Galveston, Texas two and a half years after it was issued.  It seems a little weird to be celebrating that some people were enslaved for longer than they should have endured.  The Emancipation Proclamation also didn't completely end slavery.  It only ended it in the Confederate states.  After the defeat of the Confederacy, it would continue in the Slave States that didn't leave the Union, until the passing of the 13th Amendment on December 6, 1865.

per Wikipedia:

>>>>>
Although the Emancipation Proclamation declared an end to slavery in the Confederate States, it did not end slavery in the states that remained in the Union. For a short while after the fall of the Confederacy, slavery remained legal in two of the Union border states – Delaware and Kentucky.[27][28][c] Those enslaved people were freed with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished chattel slavery nationwide on December 6, 1865.

 <<<<<<
 

Why isn't this holiday on December 6th?

 

Link to the full Wikipedia article:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth

I for one welcome a 3 day weekend just before the 4th of July

A three day weekend at the beginning of December would give people time to get their holiday presents wrapped and shipped. 

Why don't we celebrate Veterans' Day on a nice Summer day instead of on November 11th, when the weather is usually worse?  Because we are celebrating the day that the Armistice to end World War I was signed.  

I could find little to no information discussing this historical discrepancy when I google searched "Juneteenth".   About the only thing I found was a Smithsonian article stating that "technically" the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation in Galveston in June of 1865 wasn't the end of slavery.  I'm sure the enslaved people in Delaware and Kentucky until December 6, 1865 would be glad to hear that their bondage was just a "technicality".

I visited the Cherokee National History Museum last week in Tallequah and found out that some of the tribes who were decimated and hearded here in Eastern Oklahoma were once slave owners themselves. 

https://www.okhistory.org/learn/freedmen

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_freedmen_controversy

"June and nineteenth, it is celebrated on the anniversary of the order by Major General Gordon Granger proclaiming freedom for enslaved people in Texas on June 19, 1865 (two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued)."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth

It's true that the Emancipation Proclamation didn't free the enslaved people in areas under Union control, but Juneteenth grew out of the celebration in Texas, which was under Confederate control and thereby subject to the Emancipation Proclamation.  Except for the solstices and equinoxes, all holidays are made up and not subject to any technical details. 

Free at last free at last Give the brother a holiday free at last

DeSantis is refusing to acknowledge it

Fuckin toolbag

Some are celebrated; others observed.

At least, until a sale is connected.

Except for the solstices and equinoxes, all holidays are made up and not subject to any technical details.

"and god said, let there be national hot dog day"

-genesis 4:15

As much as I like days off I'm not sure we need a day where mostly white people take the day off to celebrate the end of slavery by going out to be served in stores, restaurants, and airports by mostly people of color who don't have the day off, but this is definitely one of those times where I'm happy to STFU and let other people figure it out. I'm always happy to get another day off and certainly enjoy getting Chavez day off although I doubt there are any farm workers who get it off too. 

 

>>>>As much as I like days off I'm not sure we need a day where mostly white people take the day off to celebrate the end of slavery by going out to be served in stores, restaurants, and airports by mostly people of color who don't have the day of

My son's law firm observes Juneteenth but he decided to work anyway noting that everyone else on the project team was black.

Just like Kwaanza, means nothing to me.

Joe, Empire of the Summer  Moon  by S. C. Gwynne is a brutal recounting of the history of the Comanche, who also took and traded slaves.    

Thanks, Slickrock.  I'll  check it out. A significant portion of the Cherokee museum is dedicated to that part of their history.  They own up to it.

The last Confederate general to surrender was Stand Watie, a Cherokee chief and former plantation owner:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_Watie


...and this guy will keep the future on tilt

Taika Waititi

 


...and this guy

Taylor Sheridan

 

see folks prove they are racists by their post about an event that matters to all of us

 Except for the solstices and equinoxes, all holidays are made up and not subject to any technical details<<<
 

Veterans Day and July 4th are not made up.  Deadheads like to commemorate Jerry in the "Days Between" his birthdate and the day he died.  Is that made up?
 

Seems like if we are going to celebrate the end of slavery in the U.S., we should do it on the day, you know, when slavery ended.

Exactly what day was that Dave?

 

Due call out Jill, but why black it out?

 

December 6, 1865, Mark, the day that the 13th Amendment was passed, which ended the institution of chattel slavery in all of the United States, not just the Confederate States.  There were people in the "Slave States" that didn't secede from the Union (namely Delaware and Kentucky) who were still legally enslaved from the day of the first "Juneteenth" in June of 1865 until the ratification of the 13th Amendment on December 6, 1865.

Granted Dave. But do you think that every slave in the country was free from that exact day forward? In reality?

why is this a problem?

 

In the eyes of the law, yes, Mark, I believe they were.

The question of whether slavery was perpetuated, and in fact still exists in other ways to this day (wage slavery, the sex trade, etc.) is a legitimate one, but as far as the U.S. Constitution sanctioning the practice of Slavery, December 6, 1865 marked it's end.

To answer Turtle's question, it bothers me as a fan of History.  History should stick to the facts.  As stated in my first post, the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation in Galveston in 1865, while freeing 250,000 enslaved people, also was something that should have happened two and a half years earlier.  This point was made in a movie I just saw, I think it was the James Brown biopic that Chadwick Boseman starred in.

>>the question of whether slavery was perpetuated, and in fact still exists in other ways to this day (wage slavery, the sex trade, etc.) is a legitimate one, but as far as the U.S. Constitution sanctioning the practice of Slavery, December 6, 1865 marked it's end.

It's not actually even a question

it's written into constitutional law

...except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted


The 13th amendment didn't outlaw slavery, it merely reappointed it a state function.

Slave labor on prison farms and chain gangs?  Yeah, that went on for a while.  Today they have to pay you a nominal fee for that type of labor.  I think I read that the lady who just got convicted and sent to federal prison for her fraudulent biotech startup can make 18 cents an hour for working at the prison she's incarcerated at.

December 6, 1865  marked the end of chattel slavery.

Juneteenth is just some feel good fantasy bs, that as was pointed out in the James Brown biopic, many African-Americans wonder exactly why it was being celebrated.

So, 18 cents an hour mathematically makes it not slavery?

that's where you're at with this?

really?

No, I already said that it's a legitimate question as to whether other forms of slavery still exist.  I'm just saying that the practice of selling people as one's personal property to another person in the United States of America came to a legal end with the ratification of the 13th Amendment.  

Juneteenth is being promoted as celebrating Slavery's end, which as I already said is worth celebrating, it's just not based on historical fact.

Juneteenth is originally a historically based holiday celebrated in Texas.  Anyone who has lived in Texas understands this without mental strain.  
 

 

>>> ...if we are going to celebrate the end of slavery in the U.S., we should do it on the day, you know, when slavery ended

 

It's beyond sad that enslaved people in Texas didn't get the word that they were no longer legally enslaved as of a day in 1865 after 2 /12 years. Slavery hadn't ended for them. There was no fact for them.

The Emancipation Proclamation meant something to the people who knew about it.

I believe that celebrating a day on which people found out that they were to be free is worth celebrating.

 

Just like I don't "celebrate" the holiday of Kwanzaa, but I do celebrate the tenets of Kwanzaa. I don't care if they were ascribed to a "made up holiday", they just make sense to me.

Yes, Trailhead.

Great "deep thinking" from a shallow mind thread.

Take a lap and drop and give me 5000 push-ups.

Weird how Hoover always goes for the personal attacks on someone he's never met.  Good luck with that.

It was an attack on the thread not a personal attack on the thread starter. And well deserved. 

 

But if you want to play the victim, I'm confident someone can come up with a personal attack to justify your angst. 

Maybe his first statement, though I doubt he's actually read the whole thread.

His second group of words was his usual, tired personal dig.  It doesn't really matter, anyway.  He's a Zoner has-been.

What did you find well-deserved about his critique of the thread?

>He's a Zoner has-been.

 

Now THAT would count as a personal attack ^

 

 

Since you asked, your thread arguing that Juneteeth shouldn't be celebrated in June correctly  earns the  "shallow mind thread" label. 

There's a small group of people who only come around to Viva to poke at someone, usually the same person, time-after-time.

It's harassment/bullying; grating, mean-spirited and not welcome on Viva.

Wait, what?! I'm not seeing that here, but you're free to call it like you see it. Dude makes some pathetic arguments against celebrating Juneteenth and can't deal with the criticism? Seems like an over reaction but whatever. 

Maybe if the same person didn't post racist tropes time-after-time they wouldn't get called out on it. 

I don't appreciate being called racist.  Please describe what part of my posts you feel display that.  I have made it clear from the OP that I support the idea of a holiday celebrating the end of Slavery, while making the argument that the day that it has chosen to be celebrated does not align with the historical facts.  Excuse me for offering a differing opinion and trying to engage in an intelligent debate.  I have many friends of all ethnic and racial groups, and try my hardest to evaluate others on their character and actions, not gross prejudices.  More and more, I find that often it is people who are quick to play the race card who are the ones who are guilty of it for injecting it into a discussion it hasn't been a part of.   I get it Nancy, you work in marketing and are prone to hyperbole, but you are way out of line. 
 

Hope you enjoyed your 3-day weekend.  I worked each of those days to keep my store open to all the people in my community.  On Juneteenth, I paid my employee time and a half, as it's a Federal holiday.  He beat the house take for the day, but I was glad when I bumped into him at Trader Joe's after work and saw he was buying flowers to take home to his girlfriend with some of the extra money he'd made.  As the saying goes, what goes around comes around.

Nancy, I'm not posting because of anyone's reaction other than that of Viva admin. Dave didn't say anything to us.

And Dave, do you get that though the Emancipation Proclamation was made, it didn't actually emancipate enslaved people in all of the U.S.? So, Juneteenth is celebrated.

Did everyone get out of bed on the wrong side this morning?

 

Emancipation Proclamation - good. Not everyone was freed, but still worth celebrating.

 

Juneteenth - good. Got the word to some folks who were prevented from learning about the EP. Still slavery in some non-Confererate states, but still worth celebrating, if that's your thing.

 

Thirteenth Amendment - good. But as posted above, did not end all slavery, since it still exists today, especially in prisons. Still worth celebrating.

 

Come a long way - still got a long way to go.

 

 

 

 

Yeah, Juneteenth is a bonafide holiday worth celebrating in June. Not sure why OP has a problem with that and really don't care if he or one Admin fail to understand how his remarks sound mighty ignorant and racist. 
 

 

 

happy summer solstice