I'm currently back in the South, so it's timely that I revisit this five-year old post.
Although Juneteenth remains a legal public holiday, President Trump unilaterally deleted both Juneteenth and Martin Luther King Day from the list of days when we can all* enter national parks for free. In their place, the president proclaimed his own birthday as a day when we can all enter national parks for free, in addition to Constitution Day and Theodore Roosevelt's birthday.
*"All" excludes non-citizens and non-residents, who must pay one HUNDRED dollars PER PERSON over the age of 16 to enter some national parks. For a family who might have wanted to spend several days in the area, is that per day? Or maybe the entrance is good for several days? I don't know the answer to that.
The bleaching of America continues. I often think back to the Readings on Race Book Club I joined during my year in Ferguson, Missouri. One of our members said this: "Brown is the global majority." The US is not, and never has been, a white enclave. Clinging to a delusional white supremacy paradigm will only carry us to the salvage yard of civilizations flattened by their hubris, never seeing - until too late - the ripplings of innovations from newer, younger, hungrier peoples.
I know there's the Santayana quote: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," referring to societies as a whole, not just individuals. I've come to believe that we WILL strive to repeat dark histories because that's our nature when unchecked. It is complacency that dooms us to repeat our dark histories because while knowing our histories - all of our histories - is critical, we can never never never assume that any current civil rights or freedoms or equitable access to education, income, healthcare, and other opportunities have anything more than shallow roots, all too easy for disruptors to pluck out.
Thursday, June 17, 2021
The Peculiar Blindness, Part 5: Missing Dates
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| Museum and Tourist's Center list of Important Dates in history of Washington, Louisiana. March 2015. |
I'm in Birmingham, Alabama.
Juneteenth 2021 is coming up this weekend.
I've been going through past photos, editing and organizing.
I bumped into a photo I took in 2015: A list of Important Dates in the history of the historic village of Washington, in Louisiana.
Apparently not a thing in Washington, Louisiana:
- Slavery
- Civil War
- Emancipation
- Opelousas Massacre (with its catalyst in Washington) (or heck, even call it the Opelousas "Riot")
Nor are these noteworthy events:
April 9, 1866: The first civil rights act in the United States, which overturned the Black Codes and which established that "all persons" (including Black persons) born in the U.S. are citizens. [But: The Act specifically excluded most Native Americans from citizenship.]
July 9, 1868: The 14th Amendment to the Constitution re-affirmed that all persons born in the U.S. are citizens. [Note: But voting rights were denied to all women and to most Native Americans. The 14th Amendment was generally interpreted to deny citizenship to most Native Americans, as well.]
June 2, 1924 (less than 100 years ago!): The Indian Citizens Act allowed as how Native Americans are U.S. citizens, too.
Here in Alabama, the state scrubs out the federal holiday that commemorates Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday by bleaching it with a state holiday that honors Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general.
In fact, Alabama has three PAID holidays that honor those who fought and died to protect their right to enslave fellow human beings.
In good news, there are efforts afoot to make Juneteenth a federal holiday.
A couple of days ago, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously to make Juneteenth a federal holiday.
Yesterday, the U.S. House voted in favor of same, over the objections of, yes, two of Alabama's four representatives. (On the other hand, Governor Ivey recently proclaimed Juneteenth as an important day.)
Related posts
- The Peculiar blindness, Part 1: Introduction
- The Peculiar Blindness, Part 2: The "Yes, But" Mask
- The Peculiar Blindness, Part 3: You Don't See What I Don't See
- The Peculiar Blindness, Part 4: Casual Contempt
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