Black Freedom Shouldn’t Be Political
Juneteenth has come and gone. After being made a federal holiday, Black people around the country celebrated with the usual cookouts and family gatherings. The weather across the country was a prelude to summer with some states seeing temperatures in the low one hundred. Great weather and a federally mandated holiday made the good times even better.
However, most Black people, including myself, weren’t looking for Juneteenth to become a federal holiday. We’ve been celebrating June 19th for generations, commemorating the date in 1865 when the last of our enslaved ancestors were freed in Texas. What we wanted was the John Lewis Voting Rights Bill or the George Floyd Policing Act passed. We have yet to get either legislation fully supported by Congress.
While the majority of Democrats are supportive of both bills, the Republicans, despite not being in the majority, are holding up the passage of the legislation. Mitch McConnel was again quoted as stating that “any legislation that Biden and the Democrats put forth would be blocked.” It’s so infuriating that despite having a Democratic President and a democratically-controlled House and Senate, moving the country forward continues to be stalled.
To distract the public from the log jam in Congress, Republicans turned their attention to Critical Race Theory. Many Republican governors have signed laws banning educators from teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT) in public schools. The classroom has once again become a battleground. This has placed thousands of teachers in the middle of an ongoing racial conflict — telling the truth about the treatment of African Americans in this country.
The teaching of racial injustice in this country shouldn’t be a source of contention. Students are taught about the horrors of the Holocaust. Students learn about Japanese citizens placed in internment camps during World War II. Yet when it comes to the era of slavery, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights Movement, there’s a problem. As more and more of the Black experience is revealed since the first enslaved Africans were brought to America, the louder the outcry to include this history in textbooks and classroom discussions.
Black freedom should not be a source of political fervor. The enslaved and their descendants have suffered so much in this country. The truth needs to be known. This history will not further divide Black and White people as some critics claim. Critical Race Theory is designed to open up discussion and build understanding. Those who seek to hide the truth will only make the truth come out in other ways.
