by Noah
This past Tuesday, the $enate passed the Juneteenth National Independence Day bill and the House of Representatives passed it the following day. The bill commemorates the end of slavery in America. If it hasn't already been signed by the time you read this, President Biden will soon sign the bill into law. Juneteenth National Independence Day will then become a national federal holiday. Obviously, whenever this bill gets signed into law, that day will be a very dark and depressing day for the likes of Tucker Tiki Torch and the rest of the white supremacy crowd over at FOX "News" but, as they say, elections have consequences, however rarely and however tiny. In any event, think of how morose the Diaper Don, Stephen Miller and the rest of the white supremacists in the former president's administration will also be, too.
It was just one year ago, that Trump chose to schedule an in your face rally for his typical white supremacist supporters in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the site of the infamous Tulsa race massacre of 1921 in which the local white folks burned the somewhat prosperous black section of town to the ground and murdered every black man, woman, and child they saw. After some blowback, Grand Orange Wizard Trump pretended that he had no foreknowledge of the significance of the chosen date and moved his rally a whole one day to June 20th, never mind that the massacre lasted two days. Irony's a bitch.
Meanwhile, the struggle for true, honest equality continues. Subjugation takes many, often insidious, forms. Paying only lip service to marginalized groups while maintaining the status quo of systems, policies, and sick habits will not fix the problem. Declaring a national holiday is a nice step but it is only a step. The goal should be to move from being free-ish to truly free.
ADDENDUM:
President Biden wasted no time in signing the Juneteenth bill into law. He signed the bill as soon as he returned from Europe on Thursday. Juneteenth is now a Federal holiday. That means that, for federal workers, June 19th is a holiday but it doesn't mean that Juneteenth is a National holiday. Each state will have to decide how the day is observed in their state. Although Juneteenth has been observed in Texas for decades, it will be interesting to see how states with Republican legislatures react to the law. Obviously, we can expect continued ugliness. Already, Lawrence Mason, a candidate for delegate in Virginia is, no doubt hoping to inspire some mayhem. For Saturday, he has announced on his Facebook page that he is holding a gun rally pointedly named "Juneteenth Community Shooting Day." Well now, that's a very clear opinion of what he thinks about the whole thing! Meanwhile on the FOX "News" streaming channel, the KKK's fave broadcaster, Tucker Tiki Torch, did an interview with a fellow white nationalist named Charles Murray who stated, among other typical Republican beliefs, that African-Americans have lower IQs than white people because of what he and his racist kind call the "biological inferiority of the black race." Murray added to an obviously approving Mr. Tiki Torch that that explains why they get paid less and should continue to get paid less. No doubt all the pea-brain red hat-wearing MAGA morons watching at home nodded in agreement and put down their beers long enough to applaud.