Juneteenth

Gov. Cuomo announced that he was going to declare Juneteenth a state holiday, though this annoyed a legislator who noted she tried that and he didn't even reference her. We even have Sen. Cornyn (R-Partisan) saying we should make it a national holiday. One can suggest therefore that this is just a "token" move, but I'm all for it. Mother's Day is nice but it doesn't mean we get to not be nice to them the rest of the year or something.

I'm wary about some that blithely speak of the day as one honoring when slavery ended. As this op-ed and that first link shows, that isn't really the case -- it is when the Emancipation Proclamation (which covered areas not under Union control when announced) was officially applied in Texas. So, there is clear recognition that we are actually honoring a wider thing. And, the complexities involved here make the holiday a richer thing.

Like monuments, holidays commemorate and have meaning. We have too few holidays addressing POC directly, the only major one (and one rather recent) being Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. And, that is sort of a white people's feeling good about themselves day too. The anger at removing Confederate monuments suggests Juneteenth is a bit more complicated there. As we hear talk of removal of Columbus Day statues, one wonders about Native Americans too, now only indirectly popping up in our holidays.