Juneteenth a Federal holiday? What do you think?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Juneteenth should be celebrated. We ended legal slavery decades (nearly a century in some cases) before some other countries and we are entitled to be proud of it, the founding documents that made it nigh inevitable and of the day when the news was finally heard by everyone.

It deserves all the fireworks, parades, parties and poetry we can muster.

I agree with all this, but I also think it should have been made a holiday before the 11th hour. There have been so many second order effects from shutting down the government with hours’ notice. My contractor husband now isn’t authorized to work on his federal project today, which means he can’t wrap up something he wanted to get done before starting on new stuff next week. He’s now stressed about squeezing extra work into next week. Our daycare that follows the federal calendar decided to close in an 8 pm email last night that left us scrambling for backup care today. DC schools closed and kids’ end of year party celebrations have been canceled (which is pretty crappy after the year these young kids in particular have been through). I’m sure there are other things that have been messed up because for whatever reason our government couldn’t get its act together to declare this a holiday like a month (or even 2 weeks!) who so people had a heads up to plan. I am a dem, but this feels like a last minute decision made by out of touch people who don’t think through how shutting things down affects the little people at their whim. But hey, I’m sure the politicians will get their photo op just in time for Juneteenth to show how much they care.

As another poster mentioned, A+ for the actual act of making this a holiday, but zero points for this eleventh hour execution.

They are politicians and more than happy to vote themselves a paid day off. They don't care about it, but We the People will embrace it anyway as yet another good thing about our country.

Your husband and you as well have my sympathy for the hardship imposed by the self-serving. I hope that next year you will able to celebrate.

[Anonymous]

My workplace (not federal, but work with many feds) added the holiday, but have opted to celebrate June 28th this year because it is unreasonable to call off work with < 24 hours notice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d rather have legislation that holds police accountable for killing us.

How are you posting here if you were killed by police?

Hey, but you’ve just identified the reason for a holiday in March or April. Maybe we’ll have the “mass shooting by assault weapon” Memorial Day holiday in April and March can be the “I’m a criminal / rioter that was abused by and occasionally killed by police” holiday. Then we’ll have a holiday for every month and some will even have two. Oh wait, I forgot about August. Let’s have a holiday for the day we dropped the bomb. We’ll call it the “this is what justified, bean-counter mass murder really looks like” holiday.

Sound good?

I’m sure this sounded really good in your head - and you thought you were making some clever point. It does not come across clearly. A generous read would be that you think we have too many holidays and don’t believe that the end of human slavery in this country is worth celebrating as one. That isn’t a good look.

Hopefully this new holiday will trigger a little more self-reflection in future generations.

Not trying to be clear, simpleton. That’s pretty obvious. I am mocking the post about killer cops, and this holiday’s purpose. It is a joke. We give a holiday to slaves like that is going to repair racism, but not to the entire nation of native Americans we wiped off the map. Why? Because the folks on the reservation don’t vote. It is a hypocritical and meaningless farce. But, again, I will enjoy the day off along with the celebration of a false prophet on Dec 25th, a now completely convoluted Columbus/Indigenous Day in Oct., Labor Day (random). I assume at some point Presidents’ Day will be removed due to the clearly racist past of GW and even AL, who despite issuing the edict to free slaves, thought they were an inferior sub-species.

What’s “random” about Labor Day? Scores of other countries also celebrate Labor Day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would prefer Emancipation Day as the holiday. Juneteenth is just a sad reminder that the racism marched on and should be celebrated in Texas.

At first I thought that Emancipation Day ought to be the day to commemorate, but the Emancipation Proclamation took effect January 1, and the 13th amendment took effect December 6 (or December 18 depending, since that's how long it took for the federal government to receive notice from the state legislatures). Neither are good dates for a holiday at this point.

And yeah, Juneteenth was primarily an east Texas tradition that spread over time to other areas of the South, and some northern cities due to the Great Migration. But Juneteenth has the advantage of having developed organically, and that's better for a holiday's broad acceptance than simply declaring a date to be when something gets celebrated simply because it's more accurate.

It'll be annoying when your kid asks if June 19th was the day that the slaves were freed, and you'll have to say, "well, no, it was the date some slaves in Texas were freed, because blah blah Emancipation Proclamation, blah blah one last cotton crop, blah blah 13th amendment..." But at this point we're used to having the "Columbus didn't actually discover America" and the "Jesus wasn't actually born in December" conversations (or for a deep cut the "Labor Day isn't May 1 because Grover Cleveland blah blah national guard blah blah" convo).

You know enslaved people weren’t actually freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, right? We had to actually win the war and/or take control of territory during the war for that to make any difference. And it didn’t free any enslaved people in the slave states that didn’t secede.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would prefer Emancipation Day as the holiday. Juneteenth is just a sad reminder that the racism marched on and should be celebrated in Texas.

At first I thought that Emancipation Day ought to be the day to commemorate, but the Emancipation Proclamation took effect January 1, and the 13th amendment took effect December 6 (or December 18 depending, since that's how long it took for the federal government to receive notice from the state legislatures). Neither are good dates for a holiday at this point.

And yeah, Juneteenth was primarily an east Texas tradition that spread over time to other areas of the South, and some northern cities due to the Great Migration. But Juneteenth has the advantage of having developed organically, and that's better for a holiday's broad acceptance than simply declaring a date to be when something gets celebrated simply because it's more accurate.

It'll be annoying when your kid asks if June 19th was the day that the slaves were freed, and you'll have to say, "well, no, it was the date some slaves in Texas were freed, because blah blah Emancipation Proclamation, blah blah one last cotton crop, blah blah 13th amendment..." But at this point we're used to having the "Columbus didn't actually discover America" and the "Jesus wasn't actually born in December" conversations (or for a deep cut the "Labor Day isn't May 1 because Grover Cleveland blah blah national guard blah blah" convo).

You know enslaved people weren’t actually freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, right? We had to actually win the war and/or take control of territory during the war for that to make any difference. And it didn’t free any enslaved people in the slave states that didn’t secede.

DP: it seems pretty clear that the PP does know that.

Anyway +1 on the PP's reasoning. The two plus year delay on even hearing about the EP and the way the celebration spread from Texas are also great teaching elements of the story as well. Also, it's a cool portmanteau.

[Anonymous]

Juneteenth is awesome. A holiday in June And celebrating the end of slavery for all people in the US? Yes please.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

DP: it seems pretty clear that the PP does know that.

Anyway +1 on the PP's reasoning. The two plus year delay on even hearing about the EP and the way the celebration spread from Texas are also great teaching elements of the story as well. Also, it's a cool portmanteau.

Yeah, even my mother likes it, and she usually thinks English has been on the decline since Chaucer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
What’s “random” about Labor Day? Scores of other countries also celebrate Labor Day.

But mostly on May 1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
What’s “random” about Labor Day? Scores of other countries also celebrate Labor Day.

But mostly on May 1.

Correct. The date is random. Here’s what I think would work best. Federal employees you get 11 floating holidays per year. Use them whenever and for whatever reason you like. Religious reasons, historical reasons, national pride reasons, personal belief reasons, whatever. Then, it’s still fine for fed. and SLTT governments to recognize special dates with pomp and circumstance, but no more set holiday dates. Even Christmas, New Years and Independence Day should no longer be sacrosanct. Meanwhile, I am happy we decided to recognize this historical date even though the name is kinda silly. Should simply have called it Freedom Day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
What’s “random” about Labor Day? Scores of other countries also celebrate Labor Day.

But mostly on May 1.

Correct. The date is random. Here’s what I think would work best. Federal employees you get 11 floating holidays per year. Use them whenever and for whatever reason you like. Religious reasons, historical reasons, national pride reasons, personal belief reasons, whatever. Then, it’s still fine for fed. and SLTT governments to recognize special dates with pomp and circumstance, but no more set holiday dates. Even Christmas, New Years and Independence Day should no longer be sacrosanct. Meanwhile, I am happy we decided to recognize this historical date even though the name is kinda silly. Should simply have called it Freedom Day.

National holidays are pretty much the only thing we have in common anymore. One of the only thing that binds us together. We can’t even agree on the national anthem. Take the national holidays away and it’s pretty much over. Nice job.

[Anonymous]

Will Virginia celebrate or will they do what they do? Does entire country get day off or state de idea? Tired of those states that won’t acknowledge MLK day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My workplace (not federal, but work with many feds) added the holiday, but have opted to celebrate June 28th this year because it is unreasonable to call off work with < 24 hours notice.

I’m glad they at least had the foresight for this year. It is unreasonable to shut things like childcare centers down with 12 hours’ notice. The handling of this has been so crappy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Will Virginia celebrate or will they do what they do? Does entire country get day off or state de idea? Tired of those states that won’t acknowledge MLK day.

Virginia already made it a state holiday. https://news.virginia.edu/content/commemorate-end-slavery-juneteenth-2021

[Anonymous]

George Washington is happy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
What’s “random” about Labor Day? Scores of other countries also celebrate Labor Day.

But mostly on May 1.

And oddly enough, the May 1 date is from American labor history: the Haymarket affair.