It's almost like nobody is sure exactly when it happend, except to say it was in the "teens" of June 1865...

It almost sounds like 13% of the population is lighting off fireworks tonight, so I'm sure China is thrilled about another festive firework lighting holiday that falls near to the 4th of July.

The truth here Rastus, is that while June 19th has been celebrated by small pockets of communities in the deep south since 1866, nobody had really heard of it until President Donald J. Trump rescheduled his June 19th rally in Tulsa Oklahoma out of respect. It was big news at the time with the media trying to suggest the timing of his Rally was somehow a racist dig at black people. Trump responded by rescheduling and it made headlines... more or less put Juneteenth on the map! So you're welcome!

Yes Rastus, another holiday is always welcome! Except these racist holidays are not really days where anyone other than black people can celebrate. I'm sure to black people it would seem almost like a sign of disrespect for a white person to celebrate MLK day, and especially Juneteenth... To me it just feels like a day that I am supposed to feel guilty "because some people did something" 100's of years ago! How come I don't hear about all these black folks ancestors in Africa who SOLD them into slavery 100's of years ago having to pay anything or even accept responsibility? I don't see an outpouring of love like on the 4th of July where EVERYONE celebrates, it's just another holiday in addition to MLK day where Federal offices including the US mail will be closed and only black people will expect the day off. Sorry, that's not a holiday.  

Thanks to Tump being a little bitch and rescheduling he has added credence to that narrative, that enforcement of the law back in 1865 somehow makes it a holiday? And get this, TRUMP STILL LOST! 

Guy really was a loser!

Most educated people know slavery ended in 1865 at the end of the Civil War, but now we're going to re-write history and disrespect ALL the people who died in the Civil War? More white people died in the Civil War to free the slaves than black people by FAR!

So it took a little longer for the laws to propagate back in the late 1800's but that does not mean that all the credit should be with this ONE resistance that held out in Texas! That just doesn't sit right with me at all!

Sorry if you feel otherwise.

I'm not a racist person Rastus! I once entertained a very attractive black woman, in Miami, perhaps you read about it in the V8 cafe... anyway, I even bought her dinner! All this was before I found out she was a prostitute, but hey... it's the thought that counts!

Unlike that woman who was so willing to ensalve herself for $400 an hour I declined the offer. Still got robbed of $1,500 so it probably would have just been cheaper to have just fucked her. 

https://autotrend.activeboard.com/t65563501/my-recent-visit-to-miami/

My point is, a real racist could not do that. A real racist could not listen to the amount of rap, hip-hop, jazz and blues as I do and a racist person could not own all the film titles that I own with black staring rolls!

I don't begrudge anyone their day, or the right to be proud of their heritage! I'd just remind them to remember who sold them out, and I mean that quite literally. Currently it's the Democrats selling them out and the last time a new Federal Holiday was put on the books was 1983 when they made MLK day a National Holiday. Now here we are, another Holiday that has extra emphasis on black culture? One that sort of takes away from the people who died in the Civil War to end slavery? It just doesn't feel right... perhaps it should be included in the Civil War memorial and we could somehow include the REAL cost involved and I could hold my head high with the black man/woman on this new Holiday. 

This racisim is not just exlusive to white people... it's more or less class warfare really. 

Thanks Rastus... you always seem to know just what to say, at the right time to say it.

Ouch...

Mourning the end of Native American genocide should be remembered, if not celebrated. The main issue here learned from Australia, is that the natives then rightfully want to claim back sacred land stolen from them, plus compensation too. It turns into another ugly battle regretfully, though the natives are correct in their rightful claims. And though yes, many were slaughtered at the hands of settlers, apparently the flu's & viruses brought over from Europe via the settlers claimed the most lives.

Honoring JFK is well over-due, though the truth behind his murder will always officially be hidden away. Official documents & testimony revealed in the film "Unacknowledged" suggest that JFK was eliminated for wanting to reveal the truth behind UFO's, & that our visitors are very real.

The most honorable Mr.Richard Nixon deserves such recognition also...As Vice President under the sorely missed Mr.Eisenhower, he was in a position of over seeing the activity of what was then called "Space Command" ( then turned into MAJIC ( Majority And Joint Intelligence Committee ))...Then whilst during his 2nd term as POTUS, he also saw that it was time to reveal the truth about UFO's & the extraterrestrial presence here on earth, but instead of assassination via a bullet, he was self removed from office via the manufactured Watergate scandal.

-- Edited by Rastus on Sunday 20th of June 2021 07:05:50 PM

Well, you make a good point. Trump is an atrocity. As such, we should make the day he left office a holiday too. And this would be a day that people of all colors, creeds, religions, and races, genders, orientations, ideologies can celebrate together, much like the 4th of July!

PowerStroker wrote:

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Well, you make a good point. Trump is an atrocity. As such, we should make the day he left office a holiday too. And this would be a day that people of all colors, creeds, religions, and races, genders, orientations, ideologies can celebrate together, much like the 4th of July!

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Eh, not exactly what I had in mind... Trump could win in 2024, you never know... Crazy world it seems these days!

Trump had his fare share of failures, and while he won't take any responsibility for them it's probably because he feels he did the job for free (donating all his Presidential pay) and he was going to do it his way. I think maybe he forgot that Government is not the private sector.

It's more than I make in a year... how about you?

Isn't it funny that's just how the world works too!

I'd have to disagree with PowerStroker and your news desk "counterpunch".

Wars have been fought and quite honestly Native Americans get unbelievable accommodations here in the USA. Their ancestors liked to fuck too, and they screwed and got knocked up by a great many white man along the way... except if you don't 100% buy into the tribe thing they write your family off so you can't even prove your ancestry. 

I think if a lot of people pulled their heads out of their asses they would see that Indians were given a lot of land and enjoy the protection of the United States from other countries taking them over, like the British did. 

I'm not buying into any of it, there are two sides to every story.

 

My Corvette is insured, so if someone steals it Im getting a fat check from the insurance company! I already have a model of the car so no need to leave behind a toy.

If youre feeling guilty about being an American you can always go kill yourself.  

I'm sorry Rastus but I was born in this country too, and last time I checked Native American's weren't paying income or property taxes for any of the benefits they are afforded by this country TODAY.

When the Native Americans start treating their own with respect and equality then maybe I'll take your suggestion under advisement. 

Either way, this thread is about Juneteenth, not Native Americans or Thanksgiving...

You're a fucking idiot...

People like you are the problem with this country today!

Though, I suppose if white anglo men never keep slaves, we wouldn't need to celebrate the day slavery ended.

I guess the moral of the story is that it's probably best to just never engage in any kind of bigotry whatsoever... Then we don't have to have special celebrations to mark ending such tragedies.

It should be noted too, that the 4th of July (which you like) is also a celebration of our independence from a white anglo motherfucker named King George. And as such, it is rightly worth celebrating.

 

-- Edited by PowerStroker on Tuesday 6th of July 2021 02:48:30 PM

Can you state to a certainty that every slave was sold by their family? I have to believe that was more the exception than the norm.

The rest I agree with though about blaming the white people and stuff.

SELLC wrote:

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Can you state with certainty any of the slaves who weren't sold by their families didn't volentarily take on debt and living cost in the "New Land" just to get away from their African family?

No sane person would agree to the terms they got, that I can say with certainty.

Because I am pretty sure they didn't just kidnap up a bunch of black people in Africa and put them on a boat to North America.

Um, yeah, that's exactly what happened.

Just look at the current state of the Southern border... These people are paying coyotes to get into the country! Just dropping off their brood at the border for the slight chance they might get into this horrible place founded by a bunch of old white men in 1776!

Part of the reason is due to climate change induced farmland failure. Due in no small part to our industrial revolution.

I think the reality, or history as you would call it, is on my side! Especially considering what people go thru to even get here! If they do get here and stay they are owned by the Government, Democrat Party or as Rastus has noted, the banks. The rich ones that come here will often work as conduit to help their fellow country men but History will later paint them as the rich slave owners for even trying to help. 

To not only blame black people for becoming enslaved, but to then conflate the modern economic circumstances of middle class white people to actual slavery is one of the most offensive things you've said. And that's really something.

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 https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/slavery

 

"Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries people were kidnapped from the continent of Africa, forced into slavery in the American colonies and exploited to work as indentured servants and labor in the production of crops such as tobacco and cotton. By the mid-19th century, Americas westward expansion and the abolition movement provoked a great debate over slavery that would tear the nation apart in the bloody Civil War." 

 

"many consider a significant starting point to slavery in America to be 1619, when the privateer The White Lion brought 20 African slaves ashore in the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia. The crew had seized the Africans from the Portugese slave ship Sao Jao Bautista."

 

"Though it is impossible to give accurate figures, some historians have estimated that 6 to 7 million enslaved people were imported to the New World during the 18th century alone, depriving the African continent of some of its healthiest and ablest men and women."

 

An escaped slave named Peter showing his scarred back at a medical examination in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1863.

Library of Congress

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade

Europeans gathered and imprisoned the enslaved at forts on the African coast and then brought them to the Americas.^[3][4] Except for the Portuguese, European slave traders generally did not participate in the raids because life expectancy for Europeans in sub-Saharan Africa was less than one year during the period of the slave trade (which was prior to the widespread availability of quinine as a treatment for malaria).^[5] The South Atlantic and Caribbean economies were particularly dependent on labour for the production of sugarcane and other commodities. This was viewed as crucial by those Western European states that, in the late 17th and 18th centuries, were vying with each other to create overseas empires.^[6]

The Portuguese, in the 16th century, were the first to engage in the Atlantic slave trade. In 1526, they completed the first transatlantic slave voyage to Brazil, and other Europeans soon followed.^[7] Shipowners regarded the slaves as cargo to be transported to the Americas as quickly and cheaply as possible,^[6] there to be sold to work on coffee, tobacco, cocoa, sugar, and cotton plantations, gold and silver mines, rice fields, the construction industry, cutting timber for ships, as skilled labour, and as domestic servants. The first Africans kidnapped to the English colonies were classified as indentured servants, with a similar legal standing as contract-based workers coming from Britain and Ireland. However, by the middle of the 17th century, slavery had hardened as a racial caste, with African slaves and their future offspring being legally the property of their owners, as children born to slave mothers were also slaves (partus sequitur ventrem). As property, the people were considered merchandise or units of labour, and were sold at markets with other goods and services.

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Certainly there were many Africans sold into slavery by other Africans, but that does not justify anything. It's just a racist talking point.

 

I haven't disputed that many were unwillingly sold by other Africans. Though there was no shortage of raids to capture them unwillingly either. I'm suggesting that nobody should have bought them. I'm suggesting that using the fact that some were sold by others of their same race should never be used as an excuse to justify this atrocity. It is an argument made exclusively by racists, and I want more for you than a macho white nationalist world view.

If a gang of white thugs rounded up your family and sold you into a lifetime of brutal servitude at a black owned farm, would that justify your enslavement?

I am fully aware that you and I were not personally involved slavery. But are you suggesting we have no guilt whatsoever? You and I enjoy white privilege whether we realize it or not, and much of our privilege was built on the backs of slave labor, be it African or Native American. We can't control the past, but we can control the present, and if we are even the least bit worthy of the human experience, we should at least learn from the past to help inform and shape a better and more equitable future. That in 2020 a black man was executed in the streets of my own state under the knee of another white man who is apparently oblivious to his privilege, tells me we have much work to do. If we can't even recognize this reality, then it doesn't put us in much better company than the slave traders of generations past.

What atrocity am I trying to justify, Juneteenth as a holiday? Is that really an atrocity to you? If so, your privilege is showing.

PowerStroker wrote:

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It should be noted too, that the 4th of July (which you like) is also a celebration of our independence from a white anglo motherfucker named King George. And as such, it is rightly worth celebrating.

 

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I present to the court of public opinion, "Exhibit A" in support of class warfare.

It was these very people, the establishment, the elite, and the rulers who bought the slaves WAY BEFORE 1776!

 

 

And I should remind you, Rastus, that moving forward does not mean "living" in the past.