Juneteenth is Being Weaponized Against Us
Juneteenth being recognized by the federal government will not help Africans in this Country. At it's best, nothing changes and at worse people, know less about Emancipation history than before.
Why Juneteenth becoming a Federal Holiday is Harmful
On June 16, 2021, Juneteenth was signed into law as a federal holiday. Juneteenth takes place on June 19 to celebrate the emancipation of the last Africans from slavery. It started in Galveston Texas but has progressively spread in popularity. Politicians, capitalist random brothers on the block and the white petite bourgeoisie news media are talking about it as a “Great win”, even though nothing will change after the signing. One could argue that Juneteenth will be weaponized against us, negating any benefits of it being widespread. Police will still kill us, the US military will bomb our people on the continent, black children will still go hungry and millions of black men will be stolen by the state and made slaves of the state. This is all while white liberals and the “black misleadership” class gain points in their political game with the Republicans . To quote Joe Biden, nothing will fundamentally change.
Nothing will fundamentally Change
Africans in America will gain nothing from this, but others will. The black mis leadership class will gain political points from the liberal black petite bourgeoisie, shielding themselves from the reality of how useless they are. We already see this with the Congressional “Black” Caucus. White capital will look to commodify Juneteenth, selling back to the black population their own holiday in the form of shirts, Television Programing, advertising, sneakers and other commodities. White capital did this during the Summer of 2020, using it as an advertising opportunity even though black workers are forced to work in sweatshop conditions and demonized for unionizing. We see white political elites using this to show how “progressive” they are, all while pushing for increased police funding and Medicare for all, a program that would greatly help Africans. It seems that the Imperial state recognizing Juneteenth and the fanfare around it helps everyone in this country but us. We will continue to live in the worst of conditions, we will continue to have our communities pillaged of our black men, black maternal and infant mortality rates will continue to be extremely high and we will continue to lack all power over the economy and politics of our community.
White capital looks to Commodify Juneteenth
Commodification is inevitable to any holiday under capitalism because commodity is the original sin of capitalism. There is a tendency to turn any sort of function, any object into something that can be bought and sold. We see this with water becoming a speculative asset. We already see this with mainstream television programming using Juneteenth to get views and advertising revenue. We already see the selling of Juneteenth shirts and other cheep knickknacks being sold back to us. It is the same thing we saw last summer when companies took the wave of unrest as an advertising opportunity. Like all Black holidays that is adopted by the state, they will lose all meaning and be gutted of there radical nature in due time. We have seen this process already complete with Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We even see this with the most sacred of Christian holidays of Easter and Christmas, both being nothing more that a day for international manufacturing capital to dump there cheap commodities.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Martin Luther King Day use to have strong meaning before the state took it over and it became a day of counterinsurgency. Before it was recognized by the state, it was like any black revolutionary martyr’s birthday. Like Malcom X’s birthday, W.E.B DuBois, Fannie Loui Hammer, Garvey, etc. their birthday has been used by radicals, organizers and activist to educate about and celebrate the struggle we’ve waged in this country for the last few hundred years. This was similar to Juneteenth before it being adopted by liberals. It was being used to educate about black history and by organizers to agitate. Martin Luther King Jr. Day is especially relevant given how, theoretically, less prone it was to cooptation. The day centered around a man who was widely hated in American Media after he attempted to organize in the North, disturbing the peace of white liberal elite.
Everyone has heard about Martin Luther King Jr., but no one knows anything about him because of the effort to revise everything about him and make him palatable to a white bourgeoisie and a tool of counterinsurgency against Africans. When Africans learn about MLK they told to be “non-violent” and that king’s struggle was simply voting rights in the backwards south. We are told he was loved widely, he loved America and his death was the result of lone terrorist, all of which couldn’t be further from the truth. This was someone with clear anti-war, ant-militarism, socialist, and strong anti-racist principles. He embodied the complete negation of what America is today and has been historically. If such blatant revisionism and cooptation can happen to Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, it can and will defiantly happen to Juneteenth and we will be left in a poorer state than before.
Source
https://www.dw.com/en/why-us-investors-are-now-betting-on-water/a-56294736
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2019/p0905-racial-ethnic-disparities-pregnancy-deaths.html
https://www.salon.com/2018/02/05/martin-luther-king-jr-was-a-radical-socialist-not-a-truck-salesman/
https://blackagendareport.com/freedom-ride-how-not-celebrate-juneteenth