Juneteenth 2024

I visited my local watering hole last week and the regular creepster was in the joint. This is a guy who seems harmless but he kinda freaks everyone out, because he’s creepy. There’s just something off about the guy. He seems kinda stalkerish and he makes the female bartender very uncomfortable. Hell, he makes me uncomfortable.

I wasn’t paying any attention to him and after he left, the bartender told me he was griping about Juneteenth and how it shouldn’t be a holiday. It must have gone like, “Check, please…and I hate Juneteenth.” I was sorry I missed that comment as I would have inquired why he thinks Juneteenth shouldn’t be a holiday…and then perhaps I would have kicked him in the goober.

No, I’m not violent. I would have only metaphorically kicked him in the goober. Maybe his reasons would be that we don’t need two Independence Days or that it shouldn’t be a holiday because it doesn’t apply to everyone. One of the reasons many Republicans gave for voting against making it a federal holiday is that it’s a financial burden to give federal employees another paid day off. That is a weird complaint coming from the party that increased our deficit by over $17 trillion in the Trump years. Ugh.

We should have two Independence Days since the first one, July 4, the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, did not give independence to every American, just the white ones. The closest we came to a day of independence for everyone before President Biden made Juneteenth our 11th federal holiday was the movie where Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, and Bill Pullman saved us from aliens too stupid to install Norton. Goldblum also saved us from dinosaurs at least three times. Maybe he should have a federal holiday. The only thing Jeff Goldblum hasn’t done is find Matt Damon, who’s had to be rescued in at least eight movies (Courage Under Fire, Saving Private Ryan, Titan A.E, Syriana, Green Zone, Elysium, Interstellar, and The Martian, all at an estimated cost of over $900 billion).

Juneteenth was the day in 1865 that slaves in Texas discovered the Civil War was over. This occurred about a month after the war ended and nearly two years after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. It still takes a while for real news to reach Texas, like they’re not free to secede, Obama is NOT invading them, or Ted Cruz is a scaly Reptilian-humanoid-type thing that probably eats babies so you shouldn’t vote for it. If you happen to run across a Texan, let him know. Eventually, June 19 became recognized as a day of independence for Black Americans. What’s wrong with that?

Martin Luther King Jr Day is not just a holiday for Black Americans because civil rights should be important for all of us. While Juneteenth is mostly celebrated by Black Americans, it should be recognized and appreciated by every American. It’s good to live in a country that doesn’t have legal slavery… Right? Right? Besides, we have two holidays for veterans in addition to commemorating other days like December 7 and June 6.

As for the argument that not everyone celebrates Juneteenth, it’s the same for Christmas. While the majority of this nation is Christian, over 30 percent aren’t. I don’t have a problem saying “Merry Christmas” to people, but on the day itself, I order Chinese food just like my Jewish friends do. The entire week before December 25, I struggle to think about anything other than the kung pao chicken coming my way.

Here’s the deal, white people. Not everything is about you. Not everything is for you. As some people have pointed out, equality is not pie. Giving Black Americans a holiday doesn’t take any of your holidays away from you. There will not be less Christmas and on that day, you will still get pie, unless you’re in a Gary Varvel cartoon where brown people climb into your window and steal your holiday food (actually Thanksgiving, but work with me, people). But if you’re a Black person in a Mike Lester cartoon, you will get some fried chicken.

What I don’t get is that people, like the Creepster, are publicly announcing that they don’t like Juneteenth. It’s weird how passionate people are about their hate. Nobody asked the Creepster for his opinion on Juneteenth. Oddly enough, he was expressing his racism in a restaurant where 90 percent of the staff is non-white. Go figure.

As for me, I’m going to Washington, DC on Juneteenth because I want to see how it’s celebrated.

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