[HN Gopher] Juneteenth in Photos
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Juneteenth in Photos
        
       Author : ohjeez
       Score  : 173 points
       Date   : 2025-06-19 17:41 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (texashighways.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (texashighways.com)
        
       | sfblah wrote:
       | I substantially prefer the term "Emancipation Day," as it gets
       | the point across more clearly. Lots of people don't know what
       | "Juneteenth" means, since it's not a real word.
        
         | ryanmcbride wrote:
         | Well they've got plenty of time to learn.
         | 
         | As far as I know most people consider Emancipation Day the day
         | that the Emancipation Proclamation was signed into law in 1863,
         | whereas Juneteenth marks the day 2.5 years later that the last
         | known enslaved people were freed from the people who decided to
         | just not tell them about the law.
        
           | ghastmaster wrote:
           | This is not true. The last slaves in the United States were
           | set free by the thirteenth amendment in Delaware, IIRC.
           | Emancipation Day could make sense as the last slaves freed by
           | the emancipation proclamation took place on that date.
           | 
           | General Order No. 3 - June 19, 1865
           | 
           | Thirteenth Amendment - December 6, 1865
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Order_No._3#Misconcept.
           | ..
           | 
           | Text:
           | 
           |  _A common misconception holds that the Emancipation
           | Proclamation freed all slaves in the United States, or that
           | the General Order No. 3 on June 19, 1865, marked the end of
           | slavery in the United States. In fact, the Thirteenth
           | Amendment, ratified and proclaimed in December 1865, was the
           | article that made slavery illegal in the United States
           | nationwide, not the Emancipation Proclamation.[6][7][8][9]
           | 
           | Another common misconception is that it took over two years
           | for news of the Emancipation Proclamation to reach Texas, and
           | that slaves did not know they had already been freed by it.
           | In fact, news of the Proclamation had reached Texas long
           | before 1865, and many slaves knew about Lincoln's order
           | emancipating them, but they had not been freed since the
           | Union army had yet to reach Texas to enforce the
           | Proclamation. Only after the arrival of the Union army and
           | General Order No. 3 was the Proclamation widely enforced in
           | Texas._
        
             | lukas099 wrote:
             | In my opinion, we still have slaves in the USA. (In prison,
             | as explicitly allowed by the 13th Amendment)
        
             | ryanmcbride wrote:
             | Interesting thanks for the information.
             | 
             | Regardless, people have been calling it Juneteenth for over
             | a hundred years, it was made a national holiday as
             | Juneteenth, I'm gonna keep calling it that.
        
               | ghastmaster wrote:
               | In Texas and maybe celebrated in other places(I haven't
               | done the research) this is true. For a large swath of the
               | United States it was obscure or unknown. Most of us
               | learned about the Emancipation Proclamation though.
               | Making Juneteenth a holiday rather than the Date of the
               | Emancipation Proclamation is odd to me. It is as odd to
               | me as say, celebrating Independence Day on the date the
               | last colony got word of the signing on, hypothetically,
               | July 5th.
        
             | stirfish wrote:
             | >The last slaves in the United States were set free by the
             | thirteenth amendment
             | 
             | Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, _except as a
             | punishment for crime_ whereof the party shall have been
             | duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or
             | any place subject to their jurisdiction.
             | 
             | Section 2
             | 
             | Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
             | appropriate legislation.
             | 
             | You may be surprised to learn that, coincidentally, America
             | has more people in prison than anywhere else.
        
             | mateo411 wrote:
             | The Emancipation Proclamation freed very few slaves. The
             | order did not apply to areas of the Union which still had
             | slaves, nor did it apply to areas of the Confederacy
             | occupied by the Union. Although, it did apply to unoccupied
             | areas of the Confederacy. The government of the Confederacy
             | was unlikely to follow an order issued by the Union during
             | the Civil War.
             | 
             | It may have encouraged some slaves in the Confederacy to
             | flee, if they found out about it.
        
           | ImJamal wrote:
           | Did the Emancipation Proclamation actual emancipate anybody?
           | The South didn't free them and the proclamation explicitly
           | allowed the Northern states that had slavery to continue to
           | have slaves.
        
             | bilbo0s wrote:
             | Not to put too fine a point on it, but maybe that's why
             | black Americans celebrate Juneteenth instead?
             | 
             | Kind of makes sense to me.
        
               | mistrial9 wrote:
               | African-Americans in coastal California _for the most
               | part_ do not care about Juneteenth.. African-American
               | politicians do try to get a photo op. A very large
               | majority of low income African-Americans in North and
               | Southern California, do not care about this day, do not
               | mention it, do not do special events for it, do not mark
               | it on any calendar or gather with special clothes on for
               | it. compare and contrast to  "Kwanzaa" also
               | 
               | source: been there, done that
        
               | dragonwriter wrote:
               | > Black Americans in coastal California do not care about
               | Juneteenth..
               | 
               | Some do, some don't. "Black Americans in Coastal
               | California" aren't a homogenous group, and this varies a
               | lot by things like family geographic history,
               | socioeconomic status, and a variety of other factors.
               | 
               | Source: Also been there, also done that.
        
               | bilbo0s wrote:
               | Sorry, what do you guys mean by "been there, done that"?
               | 
               | Do you mean that you're slave descended black americans,
               | and, in the case of HN User mistrial9, therefore speak
               | for most of the slave descended black americans in
               | coastal California?
               | 
               | Or do you guys mean that you celebrate Juneteenth. Thus,
               | "been there, done that"?
               | 
               | The former I would challenge you on, despite obviously
               | not being " _black american coastal Californian?_ ". The
               | latter I would never challenge you on as that's your
               | business.
        
               | Larrikin wrote:
               | It's a federal holiday now so there eventually will be a
               | tradition around the whole country.
               | 
               | Black AF takes place in California and the main character
               | had a huge celebration with his entire extended family
               | before it was even a federal holiday.
        
             | stonemetal12 wrote:
             | Yes it did. When the Northern army was in Southern
             | territory they would free the local slaves. They would then
             | recruit volunteers into the army. Not sure how many they
             | freed but they did pick up about 200k soldiers that way.
        
           | dragonwriter wrote:
           | > Juneteenth marks the day 2.5 years later that the last
           | known enslaved people were freed
           | 
           | Nope, just the last _in the Confederate States_ ; the last
           | Union chattel slaves (e.g., in Delaware) were freed by
           | operation of law a few months later with the ratification of
           | the 13th Amendment.
           | 
           | (And that's not even discussing penal slavery allowed under
           | the 13th Amendment.)
        
             | TremendousJudge wrote:
             | >(And that's not even discussing penal slavery allowed
             | under the 13th Amendment.)
             | 
             | To expand on this, knowingbetter did an in-depth video on
             | this topic[0]. The salient bit is that penal slavery was
             | ended in 1941-1942 by Roosevelt, so that the Japanese
             | couldn't use it as war propaganda against the US.
             | 
             | [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4kI2h3iotA
        
         | pvg wrote:
         | Trucktober and Frappuccino aren't "real words" but most
         | Americans know what they mean. The unfamiliarity with
         | Juneteenth is not due to the unrealness of the word.
        
           | loughnane wrote:
           | Both of those are portmanteau's, giving hints as to their
           | meaning. No such thing with Juneteenth.
           | 
           | I agree lack of familiarity isn't because it's "unreal"---we
           | invent words all the time, but I agree with OP that we could
           | have come up with a better name. I bet if you I were to walk
           | down the street here and ask 10 people what Juneteenth is
           | only 1 would be able to do better than: "something to do with
           | freeing the slaves".
        
             | pvg wrote:
             | Juneteenth is the same sort of portmanteau as Trucktober.
             | Plus holidays have weird names. What's a Christmas, a Mardi
             | Gras, a Festivus? It's almost entirely a matter of usage
             | and familiarity.
        
               | delecti wrote:
               | I mean, Christ Mass is also the same sort of portmanteau.
               | 
               | And as an aside, I was curious about Festivus. Apparently
               | it's Latin for "excellent, jovial, lively."
        
               | pvg wrote:
               | You're pre-qualified for the Feats of Strength but not,
               | so far, for the Airing of Grievances.
        
               | SketchySeaBeast wrote:
               | Yeah, people get their knickers in a twist about
               | Juneteenth but will say "February" like that makes
               | complete sense.
        
             | quesera wrote:
             | How is "Juneteenth" any less of a portmanteau than
             | "Frappuccino"?
             | 
             | It's been called Juneteenth for more than a century, and
             | has been a state holiday for almost half a century.
             | 
             | Wouldn't it be even more ridiculous if the US federal
             | government took an existing celebration and renamed it?
        
               | loughnane wrote:
               | There both portmanteau but Frappuccino combines two
               | things you can envision. A date doesn't unless the
               | association already existed.
               | 
               | Regardless of its history I venture that 95% of the
               | population hadn't heard the word before 2020, so it's not
               | like it was in the public consciousness.
               | 
               | You're right though, even if almost joined knew about it,
               | it _did_ have a name and so def tough to change it.
        
               | pvg wrote:
               | A June and a -teenth is no harder to envision than a
               | Frapp and a CCino. It's a silly tangent.
        
               | loughnane wrote:
               | Agree it's a silly nitpick of language. I'll keep
               | picking.
               | 
               | Picturing a frappe and cappuccino gives you a sense for
               | what a Frappuccino _is_. Picturing june and
               | thirteenth/nineteenth only gives you sense for _when_ it
               | is.
               | 
               | In only contend a better name would be one where the name
               | suggests something about the content to someone hearing
               | it for the first time.
        
               | pvg wrote:
               | The name of the holiday, so named by the people affected,
               | is a century and change old. The problem isn't the
               | quality of the name, which is where we started.
        
               | derstander wrote:
               | Wait until you hear about September through December not
               | being the 7th through 10th months of the year.
               | 
               | They don't even give you a sense for _when_ they are. Or,
               | more accurately, they give you the _wrong_ sense for when
               | they are by name alone.
        
               | pyridines wrote:
               | Another American holiday coming up with an equally
               | useless name is Fourth of July. Nobody seems to have a
               | problem with that name, and nobody I know calls it
               | Independence Day. Neither Fourth of July or Juneteenth
               | are great names out of context, but they both have
               | histories behind them and can't be changed anymore.
               | 
               | Heck, Juneteenth is a better name, since it is not
               | literally month+day.
        
               | ghushn3 wrote:
               | Wait until you hear about Cinco De Mayo!
        
               | assimpleaspossi wrote:
               | In the case of Frappuccino, many people care. In the
               | other case, most people don't care.
        
             | ryanmcbride wrote:
             | This is such a weird hill to die on
        
               | loughnane wrote:
               | I'm not dying on this hill, I just think the name could
               | be better, but I don't particularly care. It's not as
               | though I've got a beef with the celebrating the freedom
               | of slaves. I think that's essential for America to
               | celebrate.
        
               | pessimizer wrote:
               | It's simply important, while celebrating slavery, to
               | correct the way that black people speak. Just so they'll
               | be understood. Just so they'll know that regular people
               | don't talk like that.
        
             | qualeed wrote:
             | > _ask 10 people what Juneteenth is only 1 would be able to
             | do better than: "something to do with freeing the slaves"._
             | 
             | That shouldn't be considered a naming failure. It's an
             | education failure.
        
               | loughnane wrote:
               | It's both. The name Juneteenth requires more education
               | than, say, emancipation day or something along those
               | lines.
               | 
               | Easy names require less "education" than hard names.
        
               | pc86 wrote:
               | Ask the same 10 people what "Emancipation Day" is and
               | you'll have 7 or 8 people say the same thing even though
               | it's not even an actual holiday.
        
             | Jordan-117 wrote:
             | June (nine)teenth, seems pretty straightforward to me.
             | Clearer than All Hallows' Evening --> Halloween.
             | 
             | >I bet if you I were to walk down the street here and ask
             | 10 people what Juneteenth is only 1 would be able to do
             | better than: "something to do with freeing the slaves".
             | 
             | And lots of people think Cinco de Mayo is Mexico's
             | Independence Day, doesn't make the holiday any less valid.
             | It's just an issue of education.
        
               | loughnane wrote:
               | I'm not saying the holiday isn't valid, I think it's a
               | great holiday. The name is all I take exception to.
               | 
               | Eventually we'll all know what it is, but that eventually
               | would be sooner with a better name.
        
               | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
               | > but that eventually would be sooner with a better name
               | 
               | Do you have some basis for thinking this? I rather
               | suspect the reason White Americans don't know about it
               | has more to do with the fact that it celebrates Black
               | American history and culture, which is just not that
               | popular among White Americans. (Of course there are
               | exceptions, but the point is they're exceptions.) I
               | seriously doubt that the name is the problem. The problem
               | is that relatively few people are interested.
        
               | naniwaduni wrote:
               | The really striking thing is how poorly the name
               | distinguishes the date from the seven days before it...
        
               | Jordan-117 wrote:
               | Ju(ne) n(in)eteenth! :D
        
             | Zigurd wrote:
             | I'm white AF and this thread is cringe. "We" didn't name
             | it, for starters. It would take an electron microscope to
             | find the amount of self-awareness to avoid suggesting
             | better alternatives. Damn.
        
           | browningstreet wrote:
           | White guy here, and I have never heard of "Trucktober"..
           | 
           | I'm also going to my local Juneteenth events (in Oakland)..
           | that said, I did have to look it up a few years ago.
           | 
           | EDIT: Yeah, downvote me, I replied to the wrong sub-thread
           | post. Made more sense w/r/t resistance to Juneteenth naming.
        
             | pvg wrote:
             | _I have never heard of "Trucktober"_
             | 
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzPBaC6VPuU
             | 
             | You must be some sort of communist! There's a Trucktober
             | question on the naturalization test, right before the one
             | about Thanksgiving.
        
             | libraryatnight wrote:
             | I don't know what your point is. You know Frappaccino? So
             | his point stands? Regardless of his examples, we deal with
             | no end of made up nonsense words, rarely anybody bats an
             | eye until it sounds black and has to do with black
             | people.And yes, this is a thing, this thread is the
             | umpteenth one I've encountered today with people
             | undermining and questioning the name for what amounts to it
             | sounding black.
             | 
             | So your anecdote isn't useful. Kind of the opposite.
        
         | kreetx wrote:
         | While I'm from EU and didn't know either then Juneteenth seems
         | to be well known enough:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth.
        
           | GLdRH wrote:
           | I'm pretty sure less than 1% of people in the EU would know
           | what Juneteenth means. I didn't remember either. I just
           | remembered I read it somewhere before and would have guessed
           | it was something like pi day or star wars day.
        
             | bilbo0s wrote:
             | Why would anyone in Europe, know when the slaves in the US
             | were freed? Or even when the slaves in Brazil were freed?
             | Or Peru? Or Colombia? Or Cuba?
             | 
             | I mean won't every nation have its own history and
             | important days? And it seems to me that those days in every
             | nation will be different. I'd even wager very few of us,
             | (far less than 1%), know what those important days are
             | called in other nations.
        
         | tenebrisalietum wrote:
         | - It's in a dictionary: https://www.merriam-
         | webster.com/dictionary/Juneteenth.
         | 
         | - At least one local bank website I've gone to today has a
         | banner saying it is closed and uses the word "Juneteenth."
         | 
         | This seems to be reasonable enough to consider it a real word.
         | 
         | Additionally, the term "Emancipation Day" is inaccurate (and
         | therefore obfuscatory) because slavery is still legal and
         | constitutional if you are convicted of a crime. Emancipation
         | doesn't accurately describe the current state unless this is no
         | longer true. I'm going by this dictionary definition of
         | "emancipation": https://www.merriam-
         | webster.com/dictionary/emancipation
        
           | GLdRH wrote:
           | I'm pretty sure you're making a political point but: How are
           | criminals enslaved? Who owns them?
        
             | ryanmcbride wrote:
             | The prisons. I mean more specifically the state or federal
             | government ultimately but the prisons more practically.
             | 
             | The 13th amendment specifically carves out an exception to
             | allow prisoners to be enslaved. They aren't just using
             | political rhetoric:
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_exception_clause
             | 
             | You know in movies and cartoons and stuff when you'd see
             | like, a whole bunch of prisoners in striped pajamas,
             | chained together breaking rocks or digging ditches or
             | whatever? Those are depictions of an enslaved workforce.
        
               | GLdRH wrote:
               | Forced labor for criminals isn't the same as being a
               | slave. They are not owned by the state. We have a similar
               | sounding exception clause in Germany, and nobody would
               | call the prisoners slaves.
               | 
               | That being said, I don't doubt that the american prison
               | systems has severe problems, for example the one raised
               | in the other answer to my previous comment.
        
               | ryanmcbride wrote:
               | That's cool but I'm not talking about Germany.
        
               | JohnFen wrote:
               | > Forced labor for criminals isn't the same as being a
               | slave.
               | 
               | The difference is so slight as to be meaningless.
        
               | delecti wrote:
               | The text of the 13th amendment makes a direct equivalence
               | between the chattel slavery it outlawed and the
               | incarcerated forced labor that it left unaffected:
               | 
               | > Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, *except as a
               | punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been
               | duly convicted*, shall exist within the United States, or
               | any place subject to their jurisdiction
               | 
               | The plain reading of that text is that slavery remains a
               | permitted punishment in the US.
        
               | GLdRH wrote:
               | I don't know much about constitutional law, either german
               | or american, but I know you often can't just "plain read"
               | the text.
        
               | stirfish wrote:
               | Maybe some additional context would help.
               | 
               | Right after the civil war,
               | 
               | 1. slavery became illegal, except as punishment for a
               | crime
               | 
               | 2. a ton of vague laws sprung up, like "malicious
               | mischief". Look up "Jim Crow" or "black codes" to get a
               | sense of these.
               | 
               | 3. States started "convict-leasing" out prisoners as a
               | source of income, often right back to the plantations
               | that slaves were liberated from before. The convicted
               | were not paid for this labor.
               | 
               | Additional context: Virginia Supreme Court rules that
               | inmates are slaves to the state in 1871:
               | https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-
               | library/abstracts/slaves-s... Virginia held the capitol
               | of the Confederacy - the states that tried to leave the
               | USA to retain their slaves.
               | 
               | I forget why the crime exception was added to the 13th
               | amendment, but I assume it was to make it more palatable
               | to the states that still wanted slaves
        
               | stirfish wrote:
               | > nobody would call the prisoners slaves.
               | 
               | We Americans don't like doing that either, because it
               | makes us uncomfortable.
               | 
               | >Forced labor for criminals isn't the same as being a
               | slave. They are not owned by the state.
               | 
               | I'm having trouble understanding how it's different. They
               | are held by the state, forced to work, are not free to
               | leave, and we have a bit of a history...
        
               | SoftTalker wrote:
               | It's the "convicted of a crime" part that makes it
               | different.
        
               | lukas099 wrote:
               | So we've come to the difference of opinions, which is
               | that your definition of slavery excludes those convicted
               | of a crime, while others' doesn't. Not a very interesting
               | point to debate on.
        
               | SoftTalker wrote:
               | Yes, I think there is a difference between being
               | kidnapped from your home, shipped across the ocean and
               | sold into a life of servitude (with any children you have
               | being born into the same condition, or yourself being
               | born into such a situation) vs. doing labor as part of a
               | sentence for a crime of which you have been duly
               | convicted (and will someday be released from). That is my
               | opinion.
        
               | stirfish wrote:
               | Would your opinion change if the legal system that
               | permitted people to be kidnapped, shipped, and sold, was
               | the same system that decided if you're a criminal fit to
               | be kidnapped, shipped, and sold?
        
             | axus wrote:
             | Here's an article, the power relationship was exercised by
             | denying parole that would have otherwise been granted
             | without a profit motive: https://archive.ph/0gVie
             | 
             | "Since 2018, about 575 companies and more than 100 public
             | agencies in Alabama have used incarcerated people as
             | landscapers, janitors, drivers, metal fabricators and fast-
             | food workers, the lawsuit states, reaping an annual benefit
             | of $450 million."
        
         | lukas099 wrote:
         | > The Black community began using the word Juneteenth for
         | Jubilee Day early in the 1890s. [1]
         | 
         | I thought it was a neologism until I looked it up. Turns out,
         | I'm just white.
         | 
         | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth
        
           | zzrrt wrote:
           | It is an old neologism, but the style feels surprisingly
           | modern, and/or AAVE is so dominant today that even
           | (youngish?) white people would have coined this type of
           | abbreviation today.
           | 
           | > on June 19, 1866... "Jubilee Day"
           | 
           | > The Black community began using the word Juneteenth for
           | Jubilee Day early in the 1890s.
        
           | downboots wrote:
           | https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?year_start=1800&year_e.
           | ..
        
         | John23832 wrote:
         | Not to be snarky, but they should just learn what it means? I
         | could just as easily not know what emancipation means. I
         | frankly have some family members that I'm sure don't.
        
         | jrm4 wrote:
         | I cannot possibly disagree with this more, "Juneteenth" is far
         | superior.
         | 
         | Part of it is that it absolutely invokes AAVE. It _forces_
         | people to consider and be reminded of Black American culture;
         | "Emancipation Day" whitewashes the history a little bit and
         | gives a little too much credit to the so-called "emancipators."
         | Let's keep this centered on Black folks, where it belongs.
         | 
         | Invoking questions is a feature, not a bug.
        
           | logifail wrote:
           | > Part of it is that it absolutely invokes AAVE. It forces
           | people to consider and be reminded of Black American culture
           | 
           | If you don't already know what "Juneteenth" means, the word
           | itself gives you _nothing_ to help you understand. Literally
           | zilch. It involkes nothing.
           | 
           | "Emancipation Day" does give the outsider a clue.
           | 
           | Names matter.
        
             | pessimizer wrote:
             | Do Thanksgiving.
             | 
             | Also, if Serbia has some holidays that I can't recognize
             | when I read them from a calendar, should Serbia change the
             | names of them for me? Or is it only the words that black
             | Americans use that aren't real when random people don't
             | recognize them?
        
             | jrm4 wrote:
             | Again. GOOD GOOD GOOD.
             | 
             | What you have just told me is a FEATURE. Not a BUG.
             | 
             | I'm very GOOD with people "not immediately knowing." I like
             | that. It forces them to learn about my people and culture.
             | 
             | "Juneteenth" makes you step in and perhaps get a little
             | uncomfortable, like, hmm weird little Black-sounding
             | phrase?
             | 
             | "Emancipation Day" frees (lol) you from engaging, you can
             | just sort of take on the same ol same ol story, which, I
             | imagine for many people starts with Abraham Lincoln and not
             | Black people.
        
               | jwarden wrote:
               | I didn't realize "Juneteenth" was considered "Black-
               | sounding" by some people. Juneteenth is a pretty
               | culturally mainstream term (being a national holiday).
               | And forming new words using contractions doesn't seem
               | like a typically Black-person thing to do.
               | 
               | I associate the term with Black people, not because of
               | how it sounds, but because I know what it means and know
               | about it's origin among formerly-enslaved Black
               | communities.
        
               | IAmGraydon wrote:
               | I had this conversation with a group of people today and
               | literally not one of them knew its true origin and the
               | word never propelled them to look into it further. They
               | just assumed (correctly) that someone came up with the
               | name because it's in June and the nineTEENTH day, but
               | they didn't realize the term was actually used long ago.
               | 
               | So take from that anecdote what you will, but I'll admit
               | the name kind of has a modern sound and I don't think it
               | spurs the kind of curiosity that you hope it does.
               | 
               | Also, FWIW, the name "Emancipation Day" is also a
               | commonly used name for the holiday, though not as common
               | as Juneteenth.
        
             | rsynnott wrote:
             | I mean... you could just look it up, if you didn't know.
             | Plenty of places have obscurely-named holidays (for
             | instance, a number of countries have Whit Monday as a
             | holiday; good luck figuring out what _that_ is from the
             | name...)
        
             | almostgotcaught wrote:
             | > "Emancipation Day" does give the outsider a clue.
             | 
             | shall we also rename shabbat and yom kippur and purim so
             | that "outsiders" can have a clue?
             | 
             | people are so tone deaf sometimes - it's not for you - it's
             | for the people whose ancestors were freed on this day.
             | 
             | > the word itself gives you nothing to help you understand
             | 
             | neither does any other word that you don't bother to look
             | up in dictionary or encyclopedia.
        
               | stirfish wrote:
               | Actually, I guess we have! Notice how you typed "shabbat"
               | and not "shbt"
        
             | ghushn3 wrote:
             | Ah, just like Easter, Christmas, Ramadan, Fat Tuesday,
             | Valentine's Day, Purim, Holi, Passover, Cinco De Mayo,
             | D-Day, etc. etc. etc.
             | 
             | Observances _regularly_ don 't give you a clue what they
             | are about. Like, if you weren't already aware about Martin
             | Luther King, Jr. day, you'd have to Google it to know
             | what's up. Same with Rosh Hashana. Or Eid. I think you
             | might be getting stuck on something that is demonstrably
             | not a unique phenomena and it's reading a little like
             | there's something about Juneteenth itself that's bothering
             | you.
        
               | madeofpalk wrote:
               | The UK just gave up and named them "Late May Bank
               | Holiday".
        
           | bobxmax wrote:
           | To backup the first posters point, I have no idea what
           | Juneteenth is or how it relates to black history or black
           | people.
        
             | yusefnapora wrote:
             | Your ignorance is easily cured in the age of the internet.
             | Why hold on to it?
        
               | tomluyer wrote:
               | Yes. And those who believe everything on the internet are
               | not igonorant. If its there it must be true!
        
               | ok_dad wrote:
               | Don't use strawman arguments mixed with sarcasm, it
               | doesn't help anyone. Not everything on the internet is a
               | lie or propaganda.
               | 
               | Wikipedia is reliable enough to lookup what Juneteenth
               | is, if you were really curious and not just complaining
               | about the name.
        
               | tomluyer wrote:
               | Theres no straw man arugement here. The fact is
               | everything is on the internet. Telling someone their
               | ignorant because its on the internet is a half truth. Its
               | like saying I graduated from Harvard and therefore I had
               | the best education money could buy and theres no way i'm
               | ignorant. The straw was the ignorant comment and not
               | providing what it is why it should be celebrated by
               | Americans.
        
               | ok_dad wrote:
               | Nah it's really easy to understand Juneteenth if you just
               | google it. Let's not argue on the fringes of the subject
               | and claim it applies here. Ignorant people always have
               | excuses for why it's too hard to become educated on a
               | simple subject.
        
               | bobxmax wrote:
               | I don't care enough to waste my time learning about
               | America's latest attempt at making themselves feel better
               | about their barbaric cultural history.
               | 
               | I'm simply commenting that "emanicipation day" is much
               | clearer than "Juneteenth" - whether that's a good thing
               | or not I have no opinion on as it has nothing to do with
               | me.
        
               | almostgotcaught wrote:
               | > I don't care enough to waste my time learning about
               | America's latest attempt at making themselves feel better
               | about their barbaric cultural history.
               | 
               | jesus christ you people are so thick:
               | 
               | > Early Juneteenth celebrations date back to 1866, at
               | first involving church-centered community gatherings in
               | Texas. They spread across the South among newly freed
               | African-Americans and their descendants and became more
               | commercialized in the 1920s and 1930s, often centering on
               | a food festival.
               | 
               | just because you've never heard of it doesn't mean it's
               | not real.
        
               | bobxmax wrote:
               | Who said it's not real? What are you babbling about?
        
               | ghushn3 wrote:
               | > America's latest attempt at making themselves feel
               | better about their barbaric cultural history
               | 
               | This isn't a new phenomena. Juneteenth has been
               | celebrated for _well_ over a hundred years now.
        
               | assimpleaspossi wrote:
               | By people in a small community in Texas and nowhere else.
               | No one elsewhere heard of this thing till now. Now
               | everyone pretends it's a big deal but it was strictly a
               | local event there. You never heard of it till Biden's
               | group brought it up. I bet I'm older than you (the
               | reader). I never heard of this till Biden brought it up.
               | 
               | This holiday is beyond stupid when you consider that the
               | guy who freed the slaves, Abraham Lincoln, doesn't have a
               | Federal holiday where one gets the day off.
        
               | Den_VR wrote:
               | The American ethnocentrism is real and in FORCE when
               | racism is involved. Not surprising for an American
               | holiday relevant only to Americans.
        
           | typeofhuman wrote:
           | I disagree. I think it should be centered on the western,
           | Christian values that lead to the abolishing of a long
           | practiced tradition.
        
             | KittenInABox wrote:
             | The western, Christian values explicitly had slavery in
             | them. The slave owners were Christian. I don't really see
             | how religion has to do with the abolishment of race-based
             | slavery, sadly.
        
         | tempaway43563 wrote:
         | argument about naming conventions is exactly what I expected to
         | find on hn
        
           | antonymoose wrote:
           | It's not just an argument of name, it's an argument of when.
           | Go down to Charleston, SC where the local black population
           | celebrates Emancipation Day on January 1st and has for a
           | long, long time.
           | 
           | Juneteenth is in that context as artificial a holiday as
           | Kwanza. I would imagine most other southern states have
           | similar breaks with the Juneteenth holiday, in that it
           | doesn't represent the historical reality of their community.
        
         | chgs wrote:
         | Thank you. As a non American I have no idea what it means -
         | only knew something was up because the us markets didn't seem
         | to be moving.
        
           | pessimizer wrote:
           | Why should the names of American holidays mean something to
           | non-Americans? Would you know what Thanksgiving meant without
           | looking it up?
        
       | macrael wrote:
       | Happy Juneteenth! A reminder that we can change as a country. May
       | we never have to liberate by war again.
        
         | typeofhuman wrote:
         | It wasn't just changing a country. It was changing a long, long
         | human tradition.
         | 
         | The value system and moral framework of the abolishinists
         | spanned beyond the confines of country.
        
           | almostgotcaught wrote:
           | completely fake/revisionist news; much of the world had
           | outlawed/emancipated slavery/slaves prior to 1866:
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slave.
           | ..
           | 
           | wikipedia is free.
        
             | pedalpete wrote:
             | Technically correct, but there are 1 million nicer ways to
             | make your point.
             | 
             | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        
             | user982 wrote:
             | Someone once tried to make the argument to me that African
             | Americans should feel eternal gratitude toward whites for
             | fighting a war to free them. The fact of the matter is that
             | America is one of the very few countries in history to
             | fight a war to _keep_ slavery.
        
       | moomoo11 wrote:
       | Happy Juneteenth
       | 
       | Idk why so many people are upset or arguing. Sorry to add to the
       | noise but I'm a naturalized citizen here and I feel like USA has
       | so much history of doing better and moving things forward for
       | everyone.
       | 
       | People all operate independently in thought here, but somehow
       | since 1776 they have genuinely pushed society forward all things
       | considered.
       | 
       | Everyone acting out of self interest but in a direction where
       | things get better, objectively speaking, makes it a good society.
       | 
       | It is superior to living under dictatorships, corruption rotted
       | "democracies", or religious intolerance where the people always
       | lose.
        
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