Weekend self-care open thread: Hey hey, it's Juneteenth!

juneteenth-flag-01 by Office Holidays, CC BY-SA 2.0

I was an adult before I learned about Juneteenth. I grew up in liberal New York City and even more liberal Los Angeles, and none of my schools ever taught about the day that Union troops rode into Texas to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation and compelled the state to liberate its 250,000 Black slaves. This was two years after the Proclamation. Two years in which the South fought tooth and nail in order to maintain millions of human beings in bondage and abject misery, merely to fuel its economy with free labor.

Yesterday, President Joe Biden signed a bill into law which makes June 19th a federal holiday celebrating Black liberation. But Juneteenth isn't only about Black liberation. In gaining their freedom, Black America gave something back to the nation which enslaved it: It gave it a vision of what it could be. America began to right great wrongs inflicted on generations of human beings. Juneteenth is at its heart the celebration of the lifting of Black bondage. But in lifting Black bondage, this country's moral slavery was lifted, in part. Too many corners of this country still stew in that moral slavery, not wanting to let go of hatred and animus and inchoate rage. But they're becoming fewer and fewer, less and less important. They are yesterday's people, doomed to wither on the vine of their own hateful ignorance. 

I again speak of the moral arc of the universe. I've seen it work in the half-century I've spent on this earth. It's not quick, but it's steady and inexorable. Human beings are slowly and fitfully evolving morally and intellectually. Black liberation is not only for Black people; in their uplifting, we are all uplifted. The table we share becomes bigger and stronger, filled with the fruits of the land. I lose nothing by a Black woman gaining something; we all benefit. The path is clear; we need only take it.

This weekend, celebrate the emancipation of our Black brothers and sisters. And seize the moment to effect your own emancipation from outworn ideas and ideologies. Make a joyful noise unto the Universe, for we are free under its vastness.