Wednesday, June 19, 2024

The reason I don't do Juneteenth

I've only heard him mentioned once this year
Is different from why I never got into MLK Day.  I didn't care for MLK Day because, to me, MLK just became discount Jesus for a nation afraid to invoke Jesus for fear of being called names.  As opposed to whatever official reasons, that was my guess.  And that is why I imagined it wouldn't last forever. 

Since 2020, MLK day hasn't been what it used to be.  When my sons were in public school, they began hyping MLK before the Winter Break that happened at the end of December.  Then into January it was MLK all the way.  That focus would continue through Black History Month.  There were also ample other times in the year to focus on MLK and America's racist identity: Colonial era, the Revolution, the Civil War, Reconstruction, Segregation and Jim Crow in the 20th Century. 

Of course it wasn't just school.  In my ministry days, whenever I heard other pastors preach, it was common to hear them quote or somehow invoke MLK.  Scarcely did a sermon or a lecture or speech pass without at least one mention.  Sometimes he would be the exclusive focus or reference, even when Jesus barely got a dashed off mention.  News reports, college and high school lectures, editorials, documentaries, news interviews on television - you couldn't go three days without hearing of MLK or at least the broader Civil Rights Movement to which he was attached. 

Since 2020, however, that has passed.  There was an attempt to insist we had the whole MLK legacy wrong.  Turns out MLK thought nothing of dividing people into skin color and judging accordingly.  And not a few posts and editorials said MLK was warming to the whole ultraviolence approach to justice.  Which prompted my sons to rename him MLK-Ninja Warrior.  So singing the praises of the Man of Peace isn't as easy now that we realize violence can be a wonderful answer and it is about judging based on skin color. Which is likely why I haven't heard of him for weeks, if not longer.  

Now it's Juneteenth. And in this case you won't see me paying attention to it because, like Critical Race Theory, I have yet to hear a straight answer regarding what it's all about: 

1. A holiday for the black community about black culture and black only and everything, with a fair dash of America's racist past.

2. A holiday for everyone, but whites and others are merely invited, the planning and focus being on blacks in America and blacks in America alone, with a fair dash of America's racist past.

3. A holiday commemorating the historical event of freeing the last slaves in America which should become our real independence day, with a fair dash of America's racist past.

4. A holiday that is important because it was made by blacks alone, and the federal government merely put a stamp of approval, rather than coming up with it itself.  Again, with a fair dash of America's racist past

4. A holiday commemorating the government sending the US army to Texas to inform the slaves that they were free, being the last primary holdout of enslaved African Americans, that should be for all people. 

Until we get an executive decision on what it's actually about, I'll hold off.  Especially since I'm already seeing more and more black Americans preferring a combo of #2 and #3, with a dash of #4.  In one of our local news FB pages, several jumped into the comments to all but say it's about black everything and July 4th is dead to them.  My attempts to explain that without July 4th you don' t have Juneteenth  went about as far as you'd expect.

So nope.  Right now, my gut feeling is that its main purpose is to 1) perpetually keep the sins of America alive as yet another month becomes a vehicle for trashing the Western Tradition and its values, 2) dividing people up between groups antagonistic toward each other, and  3) downplay or outright erasing the heritage, heroes and history of the United States.  

Since I'm not stupid enough or uneducated enough to buy into such things, and there is no clear consensus on what the whole thing is supposed to be anyway, I think I'll spend my time elswhere.

Note what is missing.  What happened to 'a holiday for all Americans'?

5 comments:

  1. Whether it's Labor Day, MLK Day, or any other fake holiday dreamed up by the federal government, I won't be celebrating the political victory of one group of Americans over another group of Americans. I'll celebrate the Christian holidays; the rest can go rot. ___ G. Poulin

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  2. Sharon Denise among many others who are still blind to how they have been and are being used and pandered to by politicians still do not realize that Biden only put the official stamp of approval on Juneteenth to buy votes. Nothing to do with black history, nothing to do with slavery, nothing to do with anything except buying their votes. It's the equivalent of voting for Obama because he gave you an Obama phone. Doesn't take much to buy your vote does it?

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  3. Sorry, that was Bob above.

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  4. At least Juneteenth has some claim to being a genuine or "organic" holiday (unlike Kwanzaa, which was entirely invented by a black activist professor in the 1960s) since it has been celebrated in Texas since the early 20th century and has been a state holiday there since about 1980. The problem is the sudden push to make it national after the George Floyd incident and the not so subtle push to make it a replacement for the Fourth of July. That said, I really shouldn't complain about having gotten the day off because I work for a state agency that was closed for the holiday.

    Elaine S.

    Elaine

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  5. Sure would be nice if, 150 or 200 years from now, there were a national holiday commemorating the closing of the last American abortion facility.....

    Elaine S.

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