Congrats, We Have Juneteenth…And?

My phone’s calendar is alerting me that it’s Juneteenth. I keep thinking I’m missing something important I put in my own calendar, but then I click on that little dot and, no.

Juneteenth, Jubilee Day, Black Independence, Emancipation Day marks the day in 1865 that federal troop arrived in Galveston, Texas to ensure all the slaves there were freed. Robert E. Lee had surrendered 2 months beforehand. Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation about two and half years before that. You know ole Abe, who freed the slaves, who leftist claimed didn’t do enough for blacks and should be cancelled. Yeah, I wish I was joking.

So, I personally have never celebrated Juneteenth. It seems, at best, like something Texas should celebrate, like they have for decades. I would think that marking the end of slavery as a nation would happen on September 22nd when the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, or the following January when it began to go into effect. Now I know the naysayers will say, but all slavery didn’t end in January! Which is true. In the time of the Pony Express, things moved slower, that’s just the truth of history. But moreover, slavery hasn’t even ended everywhere else yet…

So now we come to the real issue. What is everyone celebrating?

I’m certainly thankful that my ancestors were saved from slavery by brave men and women, some slaves and some free, who fought and lost their lives for the freedom and humanity of people they did not know. I don’t have anything against celebrating the end of slavery in America, and I’m extremely grateful to live in a place that believes in my God-given freedom and rights.

What I have a problem with is this new national holiday that detracts from current events, and from the truth. Rewriting history to make themselves feel better is a leftist thing, and I’m simply not in the mood for their BS. Juneteenth was turned into “a thing”, but that doesn’t make it a thing for anyone outside of Texas.

While black people are out here raising a fist and talking about “now we matter”, we’re ignoring the fact that BLM just pulled in BILLIONS of dollars. And not a single black community was helped. Patrisse Cullors helped herself to some new property, but that’s about it. While blacks are marching in the streets over how oppressed we are, the 40 million people still enslaved in the world are wondering when their oppression will matter to someone.

Honestly, nationalizing Juneteenth is one in ten thousand steps that the United States has to promote equality and prove it’s not a racist country. At the same time, it’s constantly talking about how racist it is, so no steps to rectify the situation will ever be enough. Enjoy your merry-go-round of self-flagellation. It only stops when you jump off.

In the World Slavery Index, the US is one of only seven countries considered to be taking action against sourcing goods and services from forced labor. Then again, one of the other countries on that list is China, and China currently has over three million slaves. Yeah, there’s a problem with slavery, but it ain’t us!

Over 160 countries around the world CURRENTLY have slaves. This is not an issue of who has had slaves. Slavery existed as an institution for THOUSANDS of years, spanning various nationalities and religions. Evidence shows that it definitely existed for 11,000 years, and most likely longer. So why is the largest part of the history book or online encyclopedias dedicated to the Americas, where the slave trade was one of the shortest in history?

Slavery was terrible, absolutely terrible. I studied it a lot when I was a teenager and it’s heart-wrenching, there’s no denying that. So why isn’t it heart-wrenching now, when some people are still living it?

I don’t have a problem with anyone celebrating Juneteenth, by visiting museums or barbecuing, as Americans are prone to do. But while we lament the tragedies of the past and commiserate with the people who came before us, maybe spare a second for the people who are still living in horror. None of us have ever been slaves. None of us even KNOW slaves. I know some people are out there acting they just ripped their own shackles off, but you’re free, and you’ve been free all your life.

If anything, Juneteenth should be a unifying holiday to remind us that we didn’t free ourselves, but were freed by other Americans (you know, the Republicans who freed the slaves from their Democrat owners). People came to aide the enslaved in a multitude of ways, and made great sacrifices to build the country we live in today. It should also be a sobering reminder that there are others in the world who now need US to come to THEIR aide, in any way that we can.

When everyone is done celebrating.