What would we do without Donald Trump?
Honestly, without his dizzying intellect we would not know that windmills cause cancer, that nuking hurricanes could really make them think twice about forming and landing on our shores, that apparently those sneaky scientists have created a cure for AIDS, that testing only serves to increase confirmed cases of COVID, and that no one knew about Juneteenth until he told us.
His lack of knowledge about, well, anything is pretty much legend. But to take credit for spreading the word about the oldest standing celebration commemorating the end of slavery in this country? Well, his projection of his own ignorance onto everyone else really should not be surprising at this point.
"I did something good: I made Juneteenth very famous. It's actually an important event, an important time. But nobody had ever heard of it."
I'll give him this much. It is not anything I was ever taught in school - Emancipation Proclamation, yes, Juneteenth, no - but that does not mean I sit here at the age of 54 going, "Wait? wut?" I have known about Juneteenth for decades because I actually give a shit about life, history, and people beyond the tip of my own white nose.
Juneteenth is commemorated each year on June 19th. It does not coincide with Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation that took place 2 1/2 years earlier in 1863. Rather Juneteenth remembers the day in 1865 when Union Army Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas, and told a group of enslaved African-Americans that the Civil War had ended and they had been freed.
Remember, we are talking about a time when news was slow to make its way anywhere. And in Texas, there were precious few Union soldiers to even enforce the EP had everyone there known. While there are several conjectures as to why it took so long - from plantation owners loathe to give up their free labor, to federal troops holding back the info for one last cotton harvest, to the actual murder of the messenger - one thing is clear: slaves in Texas did not know they has been freed years earlier.
General Granger spread the word: "The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired laborer."
And so Juneteenth has been observed and celebrated since. It is important, it is relevant, it is historically significant. And it fucking matters whether the Queef-in-Chief has ever heard of it or not.
That it is being celebrated this year in the shadow of him showing up in Tulsa tomorrow for a COVIDiot rally really is truly disgraceful. And push had to come to shove to even get his coven of racist enablers to move it from tonight to tomorrow.
As a country, we are experiencing a huge sea change. While it should have come so much earlier, and there were far too many murders of Black people by police that should have triggered this, the murder of George Floyd seemed to finally provide the tipping point white people needed to firmly open our eyes, take our privilege, step up and demand the change the Black community has been begging for, well, forever.
The continuing protests full of of every skin color have been heartening. They have also been effective. Racists monuments are toppling. Murderous cops are being held to account. Across the nation, states and cities everywhere are evaluating their police forces. And many police officers, unhappy that they cannot kill with impunity anymore, and will face true accountability, are quitting. As the saying goes, "When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."
Good riddance to them. Now, establish a national database that includes every charge they have been brought up on, every domestic abuse incident in their own households, and thorough background checks for their affiliations with white supremacy.
Shuffling them around like touchy feely priests can no longer be the norm.
But back to Tulsa and Trump's complete ignorance of other people, his tone deafness at choosing locations for his hate rallies. (Although him actually making the provocative choices give him far too much credit - he is across-the-board ignorant - but his resident race baiter and monster-in-a-skinsuit, Stephen Miller, is not.)
Today is important, and I am glad more people are filling in the gap in their own educations. But people are also learning about the Tulsa Massacre of 1921. This took place May 31-June 1 in the Greenwood District of Tulsa, an affluent African American community - residential and business district - that was nearly burned to cinders, complete with hundreds of dead.
It started with a young black man, Dick Rowland, entering an elevator with a white woman on May 30. What happened was not clear, but in the telephone game from white person to white person, it grew exponentially until the young man was arrested on May 31. Because of a wildly inflammatory article in the newspaper, black people marched on the courthouse. As did white mobs. The confrontation that ensued resulted in shots fired from police on the rooftop and the Black people retreated to the Greenwood District.
It was white looters who, in the wee hours of June 1, pillaged and set ablaze Greenwood. Yes, white people looted and rioted. Martial law was invoked, the National Guard came in, and every Black Tulsan was rounded up and interned. Over 6,000 people were held upwards of 8 days at the fairgrounds. But it only took 24 hours for the damage to be done.
The Greenwood District lay in charred ruins - nearly 35 blocks. Over 800 people were injured and nearly 300 lay dead.
For the record, in a report laid out by a Commission in 2001, details show that the charges against Rowland had been quickly dropped as they were highly suspect to begin with. The Black people that came to the courthouse were there as they had legitimate concerns he would be lynched. White civic leaders selected men (all white as well), deputized them, and provided them with weapons and ammunition. At their hands illegal acts of violence ensued.
The white looters robbed and burned 1,256 homes and every church, business, school, the library and the hospital.
The true number of those killed will never be known, but historians put the estimate at between 100-300 Black Americans. (There are believed to be scores of murdered Black people in various mass graves.)
But it gets worse, in that way only white people can make it.
In order for a Black person to be released from detainment, a white person had to make application and then agree to be responsible for their behavior. Oh, the caucasity.
Now - and I apologize upfront for using the 'not all white people' line - but not all white people in Tulsa were racist pieces of shit. Many white Tulsans stepped up and donated to the efforts to help begin rebuilding the Greenwood District. The local government actually initially impeded rebuilding efforts, because of course.
The Black community was essentially left entirely homeless. Because some early version of Karen and her white woman's bullshit & tears nearly got a man lynched. And white people being white people even commemorated their "achievements" in destroying Black Wall Street in postcards they collected. (Postcards of lynchings were also a popular collector item back then. <insert bile rising in throat>)
Juneteenth and the Tulsa Race Massacre should be taught in every history class. And white people should be compelled to look at how white society has insured systemic racism stayed alive and unwell. Not teaching these things is part of that system.
Now, as many white people are sitting in their "I didn't do it" armor as they read this, let me say this - No, YOU did not do these things. YOU did not own slaves. YOU did not lynch innocent Black men. YOU did not exploit a people. YOU did not burn their community to the ground. But YOU and I are wrapped in the privilege all those white forebears insured survived. And personally, as a white woman drenched in privilege, it is heartbreaking that so many have endured so much for so long because so many others have indulged in the privilege of looking the other way and refusing to step the fuck up. We should all hang our heads in shame.
Hell, white privilege is even playing out during this pandemic. We currently stand at 2,281,558 positive cases of COVID, and 121,110 people dead - a disproportionate number of them being Black people. Economically disadvantaged, poor access to regular healthcare, testing, treatment - all contribute. As more data is collected this is what experts know:
Nationally, African-American deaths from COVID-19 are nearly two times greater than would be expected based on their share of the population. In four states, the rate is three or more times greater. And experts know that minority communities are less likely to be tested, so factor that in.
White deaths from COVID-19 are lower than their share of the population in 37 states and the District of Columbia.
In a study by amFAR, their analysis shows that while disproportionately black counties account for only 30% of the U.S. population, they were the location of 56% of COVID-19 deaths. And even disproportionately black counties with above-average wealth and health care coverage bore an unequal share of deaths.
(For the record, Latinos and Hispanics also test positive for the coronavirus at rates higher than would be expected for their share of the population in all but one of the 44 jurisdictions that report Hispanic ethnicity data (42 states plus Washington D.C.). The rates are two times higher in 30 states, and over four times higher in eight states. For example, in Virginia more than 12,000 cases — 49% of all cases with known ethnicity — come from the Hispanic and Latino community, which makes up only 10% of the population.)
Yes, white people are contracting and dying - this is not an attempt to downplay white deaths, yes, all deaths matter - but we are contracting and dying at a lower rate because we have better access to the system in this country. We just do.
Tomorrow night, one day after the observance of Juneteenth, 20 days after the anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre, and in the midst of a raging pandemic that is provably endangering minorities at a higher rate, white people (yes there will be the inexplicable few brown or black people) will stuff themselves into arena to see Donald Trump. It doesn't matter that Tulsa continues its climb in cases and deaths - it only matters that the orange blob of narcissism is fellated by the crowd. No social distancing, no mask requirements. Just ignorance aplenty and hubris spewed out for free by a creature who is now on the record as saying people only wear masks to “signal disapproval of him.”
Then these human contagion sacks will disperse back into their communities, in Oklahoma and neighboring states, having breathed in aerosol droplets of virus and stupidity, breathing out COVID over innocent people everywhere. It is irrational. It is dangerous. It is irresponsible. It is the result of cultism, ego, and science denial.
As the world watches, experts are aghast at what they are seeing. Siouxsie Wiles, an infectious-diseases specialist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, puts it best, "It really feels like the U.S. has given up."
Siouxsie, you are not wrong about COVID, but we have not given up on fighting for our Black neighbors. The marches, the protests, the pressure to institute meaningful and lasting changes will not end. On this Juneteenth, even in the shadow of a government that refuses to acknowledge 400 years of abhorrent, unforgivable treatment of our Black citizens, we - the decent people of this country, at least - are finally listening, learning, and standing up for them, with them.
And, if you'll excuse this white woman's tears, it's about damned time.
Comments