Last year was the first year I actually ever celebrated Juneteenth. I don’t remember hearing much abt the day before then, but while I was working at Starbucks HQ the Black Partner Network got together and created a celebration talking about the history and how to actually do it

This would then be my second, and I’m thinking about a lot of things. One thing I’m thinking about is how the control of information is one of many ways abusers maintain control over their victims

For those who don’t know Juneteenth doesn’t celebrate the initial Emancipation of enslaved Black Americans. It commemorates the day 2.5 years *later* when Union soldiers came to Texas and INFORMED enslaved people that they were free

More to write but toddlers are demanding

So the delayed informing of the status of enslaved ppl as free is one instance in a long habit of misinformation the US has inflicted upon Black Americans. It wasn’t the first and damn sure wasn’t the last

I think about how Black Americans are largely Christian by default because the gods we had when we were brought here were beaten, raped, and murdered out of us, all while we were informed that we were heathens & that the god of our oppressors was the god of justice & peace

I think about how for decades we were told that Black Americans were awful at personal relationships all while our history is one of systematic family destruction due to being treated like cattle instead of people

I think about how the lack of the incorporation of Black luminaries into the educational system gives the signal that once Slavery had ended Black Americans contributed nothing of note to society. How we’re not informed about the businesses, inventions, societies and more

that Black Americans created in spite of active and constant oppression at the hands of white Americans for literal centuries. And how white people today have been robbed of that entire portion of our shared history as well

I think about how many white Americans have never sat down and realized that their parents, grandparents, great grandparents, etc were the people in those photos having Sunday picnics (short for pick-a-nigger *to hang*) at the lynching of the week

Or how their predecessors were the ones screaming at, throwing rocks at, and spitting on Black kids trying to go to integrated schools. Or Black adults trying to vote. Those weren’t faceless mobs. Some of those people are *still alive now*

There’s a lot wrapped up in American history, and so much of it has to do with the control of access to information. Of who’s allowed to read & write. Of who’s allowed to be seen as “heroic” and who’s always pictured as being in servitude, whether in chains or in suits

I think about who’s allowed to have family histories. Of who’s allowed to have family legacies. Of who’s allowed to have wealth, and how those *systemic* allowances have been twisted for the public into a tale of who is inherently capable and who isn’t

I have more thoughts but those may just stay in the draft. I think moving forward I’ll treat Juneteenth as kind of a Black Día de los Muertos, remembering those that have come before and struggled through blood, sweat, & tears to get my generation here

Because the least I can do is ensure that the information of their existence and their efforts survives. Because now, no one can stop that information from being free. /end