One reason Juneteenth isn't catching on organically with the general public is that it's obviously a politicized partisan "holiday," not a celebration where all Americans are invited to join hands and rejoice in a great achievement. That's what it should be, but it isn't.
The rest of our political culture loudly insists every day that no "victory" has been won against slavery or racism. We're told they are the founding sins of America, for which there will never be atonement or forgiveness. We're told "white supremacy" remains a systemic problem.
If anything, our hysterical racial grievance industry and the ruling Democrat Party say racism and white supremacy are getting WORSE. We're all supposed to feel perpetually guilty and submissive to endless demands for reparations. So what great victory does Juneteenth celebrate?
You can't introduce a "holiday" like this into the context of pervasive grievance-mongering and identity politics and expect people to just say, "Sounds lovely, let's join hands and celebrate!" Every OTHER day, white Americans are told nobody wants to join hands with them.
Our deranged identity politics industry is busy creating white-adjacent categories they can shove disobedient minority groups into - as though whiteness were a contagious disease. Black Americans are told every day that sinister forces are stacking every deck against them.
The Democrat Party is wholly dedicated to stoking racial grievances for political and financial gain - the man in the White House is infamous for yelling "they're gonna put y'all back in CHAINZZ" - so the new federal holiday is naturally viewed with skepticism. Context matters.
Persuading more states to commemorate Juneteenth would have been a better way to go, but as we know, the totalitarian Left has no patience for representative government. It had to be imposed top-down after the George Floyd riots - a flex of power, not persuasion.
And now look at what we've got: a bloodbath. Juneteenth murder sprees. The long, slow work of creating a more harmonious nation, of putting racism and grievances behind us instead of nuclear-weaponizing them, would have produced a better holiday.
Americans know the calendar is being chopped up into more identity-grievance days and months, pushed on them with corporate and government power instead of fellowship. True holidays spring from goodwill: from people seeing the best in others and offering it from themselves.
If you want to plant a new holiday and have everyone feel comfortable beneath its spreading branches, you need the fertile soil of goodwill, a sense that everyone is invited but no one is commanded. Too much of our political culture is barren of that soil right now. /end
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