1. Some people are saying that #Juneteenth is just a symbol - low hanging fruit that doesn't address the very real problems on the table like police reform, voting rights, wealth inequality, etc. They are right, of course, but symbols aren't irrelevant to social change.
2. Systemic racism is reflected in generations of accepted thinking in this country - and while we fight for change and the fruits seem sometimes insignificant, there will be differences in the accepted social norms for the next generation, and so on. That matters.
3. The Confederate Flag is a symbol with a message that has been tacitly allowed for the sake of 'white history', as are the statues, as was even the racially debasing language I heard regularly growing up. We're seeing these social shifts play out.
4. My children don't have the same racist norms that we were raised with. And their children will have less than them if we keep changing the symbols and messaging around them. #JuneTeenth2021 doesn't solve the problems, but it forces the conversation. That matters.
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