As published in the next issue of The Valley Mirror…

I know that Juneteenth wasn’t signed into a federal holiday until last year but some companies are completely missing the point when it comes to celebrating and creating an inclusive work culture. So many companies could have stepped up and created an inclusive culture by immediately making it a paid day off.

African Americans have known about the holiday and some have even celebrated the day that the last slaves were freed in 1865 for years before it became a federal holiday. The Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863 freeing the slaves but the point here is that weren’t all free until 1865.

It turns out that technology or no technology, America has always been a little slow with communication. In a perfect world or even a semi-inclusive and progressive world, the moment that Juneteenth was created as a federal holiday companies would’ve jumped at the opportunity to add a new paid holiday to their holiday calendar. That, unfortunately, did not become the case.

Meanwhile every year Americans have been celebrating The Fourth of July as Independence Day because, on July 4, 1776, America became a free country as the Declaration of Independence was passed. We get that part taught to us in every history class growing up and the Juneteenth part is slightly touched on if at all. In school, Black History was taught in February growing up and during the rest of the year, it was American History that was completely whitewashed. When it came to Black History, the American Education system teaches us things like the stoplight, peanut butter, and the Supersoaker were Black Inventions. The lack of transparency in Black History being a part of American History could be a whole column in itself. But imagine only learning a quarter of your history in school and having to go home for the rest. There’s no equality there.

Back to why we celebrate July Fourth, 1776, and how it’s insensitive to Black People now that the entire country knows that it wasn’t free for all as there was a lot of time, struggle, pain, and triumph between 1776 and 1865.

Giving employees The Fourth of July off and not June 19th as a paid time continues to create some inequality as African Americans walk around in July knowing it took decades before their ancestors could celebrate freedom and that although this freedom exists, the systems that were put in place afterward to oppress African Americans still exist. For example, Africans were freed but couldn’t own property, when they finally could own property, redlining (the system of only allowing Black People in certain neighborhoods and giving them homeownership loans with astronomical interest rates) was put into place. When redlining was deemed illegal the system evolved into new ways to create obstacles for descendants of slavery to own homes. Today still there’s a century-year head start when it comes to the generational wealth and equity needed to own properties. This is just one of the many systems that Black People know that they have to deal with. The least the American government could do was give Black People a federal holiday celebrating the history, triumph, frustration, and struggle.

Putting one communities history over another creates this whitewashed system that doesn’t need to exist. Giving people The Fourth of July and not June 19th is counterproductive and tone-deaf.

It took years for America to even recognize it as a federal holiday. Companies not recognizing or acknowledging as a day that people should be off to celebrate, reflect, and educate adds salt to the wounds that Black Americans have been trying to heal themselves for years although they weren’t the ones who created such wounds.

Not so fun fact: In some cases when the slaves were freed the slave owners were given money from the government to cover the loss of property as that’s what slaves were back then. Owners were given the equivalent of $9000 in today’s USD for each slave freed. Meanwhile, slaves received their freedom and the clothes on their backs.