by liberal japonicus
We are just starting back to face to face classes and still under social distancing so my teaching is still rather constrained, which, strangely enough, means that I'm much busier. So I think I would have been much more plugged into reading about and trying to transmit information to students about this new holiday had this been normal times. But of course, these are still not normal times.
I'm betting that most folks here know more about Juneteenth and its history, but I think this, by Henry Louis Gates, who you may remember from this, but who is a scholar who is trying to negotiate the very tricky balance between separatism and embrace, might be a good link for catching up
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/what-is-juneteenth/
I think there are several ironies to point out, but for me, one that stands out is that juneteeth can be seen as a holiday that began in Texas, and spread out thru the rest of the country. The local becomes general and it starts in a place one probably would not expect.
More stuff at juneteenth.com/
To finish up, here is a passage from Ralph Ellison's 2nd unfinished novel, which was published first as Juneteeth and later as Three Days Before the Shooting...
The secretary, a young Mississippian, sighed. Obviously these were Southern Negroes of a type she had known all her life--and old ones; yet instead of being already in herdlike movement toward the door they were calmly waiting, as though she hadn't said a word. And now she had a suspicion that, for all their staring eyes, she actually didn't exist for them. They just stood there, now looking oddly like a delegation of Asians who had lost their interpreter along the way, and were trying to tell her something which she had no interest in hearing, through this old man who himself did not know the language. Suddenly they no longer seemed familiar, and a feeling of dreamlike incongruity came over her. They were so many that she could no longer see the large abstract paintings hung along the paneled wall, nor the framed facsimiles of State Documents which hung above a bust of Vice-President Calhoun. Some of the old women were calmly plying their palm-leaf fans, as though in serene defiance of the droning air conditioner. Yet she could see no trace of impertinence in their eyes, nor any of the anger which the Senator usually aroused in members of their group. Instead, they seemed resigned, like people embarked upon a difficult journey who were already far beyond the point of no return. Her uneasiness grew; then she blotted out the others by focusing her eyes narrowly upon their leader. And when she spoke again her voice took on a nervous edge.
happy Juneteenth
Recent Comments