The celebration of black emancipation deserved better advocates than the ones it got.
One comment I get very often when I speak to people involved in conversations around DEI is, “so, did America actually get less racist because of all this?” It’s not a side question — it’s the question. After corporate America dumped tens of billions of dollars into programming, conferences, speaker sessions, and workforce briefings ostensibly designed to deepen our national conversation on race (to say nothing of similar efforts in higher ed and beyond), was the actual result that people were less divided along racial lines?
The reality is, we’re talking a lot more about race now — and it’s by no means clear that the result has bettered our discourse. In fact, if you look at our modern debates over DEI, you could very easily walk away and conclude that five years of talking about virtually every aspect of race relations hasn’t brought about harmony or reconciliation. Take, for example, these two opposing headlines: (1) this, from The Conversation, proclaiming that “Yes, efforts to eliminate DEI programs are rooted in racism,” and (2) this, from former DEI trainer Erec Smith at the Cato Institute, arguing that “there’s a kind of racism embedded in DEI.” Our discourse on these issues hasn’t exactly settled into a peaceable middle ground.
Nor, indeed, am I arguing that we should be compromising to a midpoint on DEI. The Conversation is largely wrong. Erec Smith is largely right. And one of the sadder proofs of why Smith’s largely right is this: the extremes of DEI have successfully corrupted moments of our history that could otherwise be seen as unifying and positive, and turned them into proxies in the diversity debate.
Unfortunately, Juneteenth is becoming one of those moments.
June 19, 1865 was the day Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform the slaves of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, effectively delivering the news of their freedom. Although Juneteenth remained a largely local holiday for many years (I live in western Pennsylvania and can honestly say I heard almost zero mention of Juneteenth outside of history books prior to 2020), President Biden would mark it a federal holiday in 2021, entering it into the panoply of historical events that America deems so significant that people will consistently take off work for it.
Austin American-Statesman – June 19, 1900
And that, I’d argue, is where the problem began — not with its recognition (in theory, it’s a celebration of Americans being liberated from oppression and therefore an incredibly on-brand holiday for a free nation), but with the way President Biden decided to talk about it. “I call upon the people of the United States,” Biden’s address read, “to acknowledge and celebrate the end of the Civil War and the emancipation of Black Americans, and commit together to eradicate systemic racism that still undermines our founding ideals and collective prosperity.”
Let me be as clear as I can, for at least half of the country, that’s what’s called a non-starter. And let’s be even clearer: this was an unforced error on Biden’s part. It was (and is) completely possible to celebrate Juneteenth in a completely American, positive, and non-racializing way, in a way that doesn’t lend credence to the unproven notion that racism infects all parts of American society and cripples all of our institutions of meaning. You can celebrate Juneteenth without validating the kind of Robin DiAngelo-level analysis that asserts “The social contract underwriting all other social contracts in the Western world is white supremacy,” sans evidence of course. But no, avoiding this kind of narrative creep was outside the pale when it came to Juneteenth’s rollout as a federal holiday. “The end of the Civil War and the emancipation of Black Americans.” Amazing. Inspirational, incredible, and there aren’t enough fireworks we could possible shoot off to celebrate that sort of thing. “Systemic racism?” Well, now we have to sit down and parse out exactly what you’re on about.
For the logicians in the room (and that’s every American, by the way), this is called a sneaked premise: a hidden assumption that (if cleverly deployed) gets people to assume the validity of a claim, instead of actually having to do the work to prove it. Biden’s speech did just that. In using the language like “systemic racism,” he changed the perception of Juneteenth from a holiday celebrating the freedoms that all Americans love and value, to a holiday associated with an incredibly narrow and negative perception of America that a majority of us aren’t on board with.
Instead of actually mounting evidence to support claims about systemic racism, Biden instead co-opted this truly special moment in our nation’s history of freedom to serve a modern “antiracist” narrative that, in fact, has made Americans incredibly racially divided.
“So what?” you might say. “President Biden doesn’t get to determine the meaning of Juneteenth. We do, and we know it’s not about that.” It’s a fair critique — especially when you see the amount of distance between what emancipation means and what many modern DEI advocates (or, apparently, folks like Joe Biden in 2021) believe about America. It’s truly baffling how a holiday like Juneteenth could end up serving modern narratives that promote racialism. But… it did, at least for many.
One of the best pieces you can read on Juneteenth is my friend Dace Potas’ 2023 piece on the holiday:
Juneteenth marks one of the most important single events in the long journey of American progress and provides us with a fine occasion to reflect on how we can better fulfill the principles our country was founded upon.
I agree with him. Unfortunately, a bevy of evidence indicates that Juneteenth largely hasn’t become an opportunity to reflect on such unifying principles. Instead, as the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture asserts, “Juneteenth marks our country’s second independence day.”
I understand this sentiment, as much as I disagree with many of the assumptions that often go with it. But I question whether building out parallel versions of our most important holidays is particularly well-serving of our goals of unity. And Juneteenth’s public perception is, regrettably, tied to the perception of DEI. As major corporations bow out of DEI initiatives, Juneteenth celebrations are a part of that too. One Denver Juneteenth music festival saw more than a dozen corporate sponsors drop the event, many citing concerns over sponsoring DEI-related events.
It shouldn’t be this way. The thing that Juneteenth celebrates — the liberation of Americans from systems of oppression that existed for centuries in direct contradiction to the values of liberty and equality — isn’t woke or divisive or counterproductive in any way. There’s no reason that Juneteenth, and America’s victories over racism, should be tied to the fate of movements like DEI. But, ever since it became a federal holiday, it’s become a sad example of how truly corrosive ideologies can mar and destroy the perceptions of our country’s most beautiful moment.
I maintain that there’s a perfectly correct, patriotic, and American way to celebrate Juneteenth. But if you want to do that, you’re likely going to end up disagreeing with many of Juneteenth’s most vocal supporters. And that’s a true tragedy.