Commemoration of Juneteenth
In the 57 years I’ve been living in this country, I’ve never heard about Juneteenth, commemorating the day slaves in Texas found out they have been freed by President Abraham Lincoln.
Short for “June Nineteenth,” Juneteenth marks the true end of slavery across the United States— which didn’t actually occur until 1865, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Specifically, it marks the day when enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas (one of the westernmost points in the Confederate South) finally received news of their liberation.
Reading about slavery has always interested me because it’s a sad period for the United States that is why it puzzled me not knowing anything about it. Now, with all the turmoil going on in the country people are trying to show compassion towards the Black community, learn about history and culture and teach others. I applaud that we have come to this point.
Today we are not talking about slavery but about the misconceptions and lack of respect Blacks suffer. There is no uniformity in the way children learn their history, not from one state to another, but from city to city in any state of the Union.
On Saturday, June 20, The Boston Globe published an article THE GREAT DIVIDE A tale of two schools and the way they teach — or fail to teach — about racism, by Jenna Russell and Bianca Vázquez Toness. I highly recommend it.
Briefly, it’s the story of a teacher in affluent Milton, MA who was asked to do an assignment about racism. She assigned two poems by a Black author to her students but could not imagine that it almost put an end to her 18-year career.
A parent complained about one of the poems and the school principal suspended the teacher. Just hours later, after receiving many emails and over 100 residents signed a letter condemning the principal’s action. Within hours, the teacher was reinstated.
I’m not giving you many details because I want you to go and read the article. This piece compares Milton with 70 percent white students while Dorchester have 90 percent Blacks and Latinos and they have no such problems dealing with those issues because it’s part of their daily lives.
Why am I telling you this? We have a system in Lawrence Public Schools that lacks any kind of education on racism. I was told that now they are making plans to establish some sort of curriculum touching on that. Like Dorchester, racism and police brutality is part of everyday life in Lawrence and we have around 95% minorities here. Some schools (Arlington, Tarbox and probably others) have 100% minorities.
I used to work in the school system and still have some friends there who tell me that the in-service sessions are nothing but indoctrinations that are then passed on to the students.
We need to talk about all of these things if we want our children to succeed in school and encountered different people when they get out of this city. No wonder many students drop out of college in their first year.
Juneteenth – the Holiday
Perhaps politicians are taking this date as a political crutch to score points with the voters. Case in point, Lawrence City Hall closed on Friday and city employees had a day off with pay in observance of June 19th.
There was no discussion with the many unions serving city employees or the city council. The mayor made an executive decision because he’s the boss – or king.
“If the ‘holiday’ is legally instituted and contractually guaranteed to city workers, then to pay the city workers is a misappropriation of city funds!” Rich Russell wrote on his Facebook page. Or, is it a measure taken for just this year and next year it will be forgotten?
I like what James Patrick O’Donoghue responded to Russell, “It means that the Mayor can exploit the Texas holiday to get his name and face in the media once again. He does everything for publicity.”
Jumping on the bandwagon
Yes, we need education on the history of the United States, slavery and racism being taught at length in our schools. We have seen tons of examples in the past few days of the ignorance parading the streets but worse of all, in our capital of Washington D.C.
The Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, just like Mayor Dan Rivera, is trying to score points out of this situation pretending they are on the right side of logic. Pelosi asked to remove 11 statues and pictures with the excuse that they offended this country with their actions or were from the Confederate Army. “These names are white supremacists that said terrible things about our country,” she said at a press conference but didn’t tell the public that most of them were Democrats.
Also, four of the pictures removed were former Speakers of the House, just like her and Democrats.
It’s all a show and those who follow this infatuation have no idea of what they are doing. In Philadelphia, the statue of Matthias Baldwin which stands outside City Hall was doused with red paint and spray-painted the words “colonizer” and “murderer” on its pedestal. They didn’t know that Balwin was an abolitionary who fought for 30 years to end slavery until it was passed.
Where do we go from here?
Not teaching this generation the dangers of falling to the dreaded past.
I see things happening in this country that we went through in Cuba in the 60s. I can see it all coming to that end. No matter how some people feel about a book subject, others may want to read it.
How come almost no one in this country knew about the massacre in Tulsa 100 years ago. Because it was kept secret and no one talked about it until somebody brought it up in recent weeks. I want to know if the African American Museum in Washington D.C. touched that subject or they limited their exhibits to slavery.
The statue of former President Ulysses S. Grant, who famously led the Union Army to victories that crippled and ultimately brought down the Confederacy, was knocked down in San Francisco. Grant also served as the nation’s eighteenth president.
Now they want to remove Miguel De Cervantes’ statue. Do they know who he was? Ignorance in this country is rampant and we want to erase even more history.
Education is the key. Let’s begin by teaching who they were and what they did.
