Juneteenth and the Ever-Evolving Expression of Black Exploitation

In America, racial progress rarely feels straightforward. Our racial history is so incredibly strife with complexity, hypocrisy and artifice that any step forward feels like pulling a knife out of a wound: it cuts even as it comes out. 

Saturday marked our nation’s first time celebrating Juneteenth as a federally recognized holiday. Juneteenth commemorates the day that slavery was effectively ended in the US. But, over 150 years later, black people still struggle on a daily basis for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Therefore, any kind of celebration of black freedom feels at best, only partial and at worst, solely performative.

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On June 19th, 1865, the federal government sent troops to Galveston, Texas to ensure that all enslaved people were freed. The Emancipation Proclamation however, was signed two and a half years earlier, meaning that, in parts of the country, slavery existed in full force for two and a half years after the first time the government promised to free slaves. After June 19th, 1865 when the government attempted to end slavery for the second time, many slaveholders withheld information about the new law from their slaves for many months and continued on anyway. When the word finally got out and slavery was in fact, over, plantations, still entirely reliant on free exploitative labor, transitioned to systems of indentured servitude in which black labor was still utilized for free. “Plantations in some places actually expanded after the 13th Amendment’s ratification, scholars have found, while Black people convicted of minor offenses were sent to toil on railroads in chain gangs and work deadly jobs in coal mines.” (Knowles, Washington Post). Certain states, most notably Alabama, found loopholes in the new law that allowed for slavery “as a punishment for crime” in addition to passing laws that “made it illegal for Black farm employees to sell a long list of foods, including corn, rice, cotton and ‘animal of any kind’”. That slowly morphed into Jim Crow laws which blatantly structured society towards inequality until they were finally overruled by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. However, the loophole that allows for free labor to exist “as a punishment for crime” still exists today and manifests as forced prison labor.

Last summer, during Black Lives Matter protests, people filled the streets to remind America that the unlawful mistreatment of black men and women is not acceptable, and three weeks ago, on Memorial Day, Demetrius Stanley, a 31-year-old black man in San Jose, California approached two plainclothes police officers who were conducting surveillance outside of his home in an unmarked vehicle and, after failing to identify themselves to Stanley, fatally shot him in front of his home without even leaving their car. 

Racial progress in America is not concrete change. It’s the slow evolution of a system of white supremacy and black exploitation that continues to morph into different forms but whose grounding is solid and unmoving. 

In 1865, creating the Juneteenth law didn’t do anything to change the hearts and minds of people, it merely evolved the expression of black exploitation. It was nominal then and it runs the risk of being nominal now.

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It’s this desire to publicly espouse an ideal without actually doing the work to bring it into reality that I see as posing the greatest obstacle on the road to social justice. 

Because of the prevalence and importance of social media in our society, social capitol is tied up entirely in optics. While the image we portray to the world is an important part of social change, optics are not results. When we post and talk about social change, we get the credit for the mission without actually doing any of the work.

There have been studies done around what’s called the “intention-behavior gap”; that is, the difference between what we say we’re going to do and what we actually do. These studies have found that when we accomplish a goal that we set out to accomplish, we get a massive hit of dopamine, the neurotransmitter that makes us feel good. However, when we set out to accomplish a goal and then tell everyone we know about it, the praise and feedback that we receive for our intended goal gives us hits of dopamine as well, giving us the sensation of having accomplished the goal already and decreasing our psychological motivation to actually do it. What goes along with these studies is the neurochemical understanding that when we set a goal for ourselves, the more people we tell about it, the less likely we are to actually accomplish it. 

When it comes to racial justice, there’s a big difference between posting a picture of yourself at a Black Lives Matter demonstration and actually breaking down unconscious white supremacy in your own mind and community. And when it comes to corporate America, there’s a big difference between lining up press conferences to announce a slight alteration in your company’s mission statement and actually hiring and retaining black employees in positions of power. This desire to publicize our every virtue leads to a cycle of lots of celebrity and no results.

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There are two ways that we can look at the fact that the federal government is now recognizing Juneteenth as a federal holiday. On the one hand, it’s a reflection and continued creation of America’s increasing awareness around social justice. On the other hand, it’s the opening of a release valve, allowing for the government to release tension created by increasing demand for racial equity by creating a holiday that runs the risk of having as nominal of an impact as did the “end of slavery” itself in 1865 or, for that matter, 1863.

Commemorating June 19th as an important day for not just black history but for all of American history (let’s not forget, they are one in the same) is without a doubt a step forward in our country’s collective consciousness. Now, as we continue to take steps forward, let’s continue to check our compass and make sure that our steps are leading us to where we want to go.  

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In 1964 when Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions released Keep on Pushing, he knew that mainstream radio wouldn’t play his song if the political message behind it was too blatant. So he crafted the lyrics to be subtle enough to pass as a generic message about overcoming personal adversity. However, the black community in the midst of fighting for racial equality heard his message loud and clear and Keep on Pushing came to be an important song in the civil rights movement, a movement which is far from over. At a time like now, “it don’t make sense not to keep on pushing”.