What does Juneteenth mean if you're white?
We recently observed the holiday of Juneteenth, which celebrates the emancipation of enslaved Black Americans in Texas—a full 30 months after it had been proclaimed elsewhere in the Union. Hoping to squeeze a couple more years' worth of free labor from enslaved people, enslavers had relocated en masse to Texas and managed to keep the news of Emancipation quiet all the way until June 19, 1865.
Emancipation Day celebration, June 19, 1900, held in "East Woods" on East 24th Street in Austin. Credit: Austin History Center
Finally, on that day, Major General Gordon Granger of the Union Army marched through Galveston reading General Order number 3, which read:
"The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere."
Upon hearing this news, Black folks in Texas didn't wait for further encouragement. They freed themselves. Some stayed where they were, to see how the "employer and hired labor" thing was going to work out, but most took their possessions and left, making their way across the country and the world. For many Black Americans, the story of Juneteenth is a demonstration of the endurance and self-direction of their centuries-long struggle towards freedom.
What does it mean if you're white? Personally, I can't read the story of Juneteenth without feeling second-hand embarrassment. Imagine the arrogance of receiving news that enslaved Black people had been freed, and then deciding to keep that news from them. Imagine the impunity it would take to get away with it for more than two years. You may wonder—as I do—whether it's even appropriate to celebrate or acknowledge Juneteenth. Perhaps white people should remain spectators to this holiday.
But while embarrassment is real and should be acknowledged, even a spectator can still learn by watching. Holidays and commemorations such as these can serve as a form of collective cultural education, and there are a pair of lessons I take from the Juneteenth story:
1. Anti-racism is most effective when coupled with political power
The closest thing to a white hero in this story is Gordon Granger, the Union officer who read out the proclamation—a man who was literally just following orders. But a Union officer could never have set foot in Galveston had the north not won the war. Notable in the Juneteenth story is the powerlessness of the slave owners: newly free Black folks packed up and left, and the enslaving class had no means to stop them on a macro level (though they obviously wanted to). I've come to believe that the project of persuading white people towards anti-racism must be complemented by the project of making racists politically irrelevant. It can be easy to become frustrated, confused, and exhausted by national politics. However, keeping Republicans and other racists out of power at the national level has real, tangible knock-on benefits at the local level (and vice versa).
2. The struggle is permanent
Amidst the good news of Black emancipation in Texas, there is one particular phrase in Granger’s proclamation that I find obnoxious to the point of being infuriating, and it's the statement that "freedmen... will not be supported in their idleness.” Lecturing recently-freed enslaved people against "idleness" is peevish and defensive to the point of absurdity. It's also a preview of the techniques of shame and exploitation that were to come.
After it was no longer legal to pay their workers nothing, many rich whites immediately sought every way they could find to pay them as little as possible. This led to sharecropping and other oppressive systems that were often merely an incremental improvement over slavery. Underpinning all of these techniques was the perpetuation of the biased notion that Black people were lazy, shiftless, and too untrustworthy to be treated fairly. Notice how the phrase inverts perpetrator and victim by suggesting that white employers are now the victim of black "idleness." Many pro-Union whites, who displayed true commitment to the anti-slavery cause during the war, were immediately hoodwinked after it (or pretended to be) by this set of ridiculous lies meant to justify exploiting Black labor.
Unfortunately, white supremacy is extremely adaptable. After being debunked in one form, it immediately takes another. But this has never made the struggle futile—not then and not now. The freedom movement doesn't have to achieve permanent or complete victory to be worthwhile, nor is it naive to believe that true freedom is possible.
These two concepts, at this point, form the basis for my personal engagement with Juneteenth . In researching this piece, I came across an article from waysideyouth.org that provided me with a welcome sense of grounding around a holiday that de-centers my whiteness. I hope it does the same for you.
Ten things we want white people to do to celebrate Juneteenth (—Via waysideyouth.org)
1. We want white people to deeply consider the wound of racism on the hearts of every Black American.
2. On Juneteenth we want white people to read, study Black history, Black poets, Black leaders, Black achievements.
3. We want white people to do things about racism as readily as they do things for their own children.
4. We want white people to make a list of resolutions, of promises, of vows about what will it take for them to use their power, their privilege, their platforms of power to give space to Black and Brown leaders.
5. We want them to find an accountability partner and make the list public of what actions they will take. They CAN do this on social media. A lot of those actions will be giving up privilege and making room for folks who they may not have noticed have no room at all.
6. We want white people to stop talking about how uncomfortable it is to talk about racism or police violence.
7. We want white people to stop being afraid of their own internalized white supremacy. We want them to search and look within at hard facts of thought and deed. Who cares about being comfortable? What about being true, brave and real instead?
8. Then we want white people to stop talking and listen to what needs to be done.
9. We want white people to plan on spending time in spaces with folks who are not like you.
10. We want white people to hold other white people accountable not on social media, instead with measured voices that call folks in to look and wrestle – to change. We are interested in courageous conversations, in hearing folks out and in allowing themselves to feel terrible and to let that feeling be a crucible for change.
I wish you all a happy Juneteenth, and if that's not possible I wish you a true, brave, and real one.
—Bob
