So today is Juneteenth, and I know I just did a thread, but all that I had to say wouldn’t fit in one tweet, so here it goes:

Firstly, understand I don’t celebrate Juneteenth. I grew up in largely White areas and never even heard about it until my late 20’s. My mother, from whom my Black blood originates, doesn’t celebrate. So I learned what the day was about very late on.

For those of you who don’t know, the day celebrates when Texas was finally forced to surrender their slaves in 1865, TWO AND A HALF YEARS following the Emancipation Proclamation.

Sit with that for a second. Imagine hearing that you were to finally live free, only to be held for 2.5 years more because your master disagreed that you were human. How many people died before being freed? How many got to taste that possibility, only to just miss it?

Thinking on this, I realize there are 2 lessons here that we should remember. 1: our fear of talking about our mistakes is why we haven’t changed much. Why do you think today isn’t a national holiday? Germany celebrates Holocaust Remembrance Day, but we shy from this. Why?

Lesson 2 is more of a statement, but one I ask that you really contemplate: the pure hatred and anger and resentment that you have to have to hold someone as if they’re your plaything, even after they’ve been deemed a human being is insurmountable. It is immense.

Not only were slaves a boon to agricultural society, but they were seen as animals. To be told that your animals will now live equally to you as you lose money is angering. You can’t take that shit out on White men; they can legally fight back. But those savages, those animals...

If you think that the anger and resentment and hate that resulted died with those men and women, that they didn’t tell stories of it, and sow it within their children, and use their money and influence for generations to keep some semblance of power...

If you think that they didn’t teach their sons to teach their sons to teach theirs that those animals were still animals, still nothing more than stolen toys that were to quietly be controlled by laws and lawmen...then you don’t understand how White men with a grudge work

We aren’t the best country in the world. The best country wants to grow in a way that protects and provides for its citizens. It doesn’t try to hide its history so that it doesn’t have to learn. Until we get that straight, we’re just a leaky old house with a new coat of paint.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve learned from Juneteenth. We have a long way to go. And it’s up to you whether you get up and make the trek, or you sit back down and continue the trend. That’s all I got. Namas-fucking-te.