I HAVE NEVER HEARD OF JUNETEENTH IN MY FUCKIN' LIFE!!!!

hi there. i'm white, and i've long sine heard of juneteenth.

It's like summertime Kwanzaa.

Don't get me started on the stupid fucking names!

Allegedly, it's been around for 118 years or some bullshit!!!! WTF and now it's a national holiday? I'm all for black lives matter but I don't like being hoodwinked by politicians who blatantly make shit up to control the narrative!!!

Couldn't it be Julyteenth so it's not right in the middle of Pride Month. You know this is going to subsume pride month from now on.

This infuriates me!!! Somehow someone has branded this bullshit Juneteenth thing and everyone thinks it's an actual thing, when it's not!!!!!!!!!!!!

narrator: "but it is."

I had never heard of it until now.

"Juneteenth" did not exist until 3 days ago!!! It is a manipulation by someone who is trying hoodwink the american public. I cant stand this kind of manipulation!!!

Fire up the incinerator, wretched racist cunts.

Juneteenth has been a thing for a looong time. But I have noticed that it seemed to get little mainstream (i.e., white) attention before this year, in the wake of the BLM protests.

Haha the racists are imploding. Watching this is glorious.

I agree OP. I've said this elsewhere on the board but Juneteenth was unknown before this started. I knew about it because it's celebrated by black people in Texas, where I'm from. It's also celebrated in Louisiana. But I've lived in many other states and it's simply not known elswhere. Also, there is very little mention of Juneteenth in media before this year-- and most articles about it are of the "what is Juneteenth?" variety. It's great that it's finally receiving recognition, but people who claim they knew about it all along are fucking liars.

I am not a racist. I hope Trump and his enablers are thrown into prison. I fully support the protestors and think they should topple MORE statues. I think it's foolish to pretend that white people all along knew of and cared about this holiday.

Gurrl you is ‘tarded. If you’ve been around Black people for more than a couple days, or taken an American History class, you’ve heard of it. Really? Lol...

R10, even black people paid no attention to Juneteenth.

I am NOT a racist!!!

What I can't stand is the blatant manipulation by political organizations who think they can manipulate american voters who think we are dumbfuck rednecks who don't know what is going on!!! Trump has to go! I'm a republican but i can't wait to see his ass kicked to the curb!!! He is evil!!! But, how the fuck did a national holiday appear out of nowhere???

Kwanzaa takes the cake as the most ridiculous, made-up holiday.

And out of all the things to be outraged about to the point you are infuriated it is a day about black people.

No Easter is actually. A sky fairy resurrecting himself from the dead. Yeah okay.

Juneteenth was a new one on me. I don't have any problems with it.

[quote] And out of all the things to be outraged about to the point you are infuriated it is a day about black people.

What's infuriating is white people acting like they knew about it ALL along. It would be a lot more honest if people just said "I learned something new about black culture."

White guy here. Juneteenth has very much been a thing for a long time. While I’m sure it’s bigger in some places (Texas) than others (say, Vermont?), anyone who has taken the trouble to study Black History on even a superficial level would have encountered it longer than “three days ago.”

All the outrage seems to be directed at the newfound attention about Black people. What about us. Well the native American Indians had their land taken off them. All lives matter etc. Focusing on what black people have to face and deal with doesn't negate what non people face.

Non black people not non people . Fuck auto correct

I've already started receiving emails at work from corporations who will be closed on Juneteenth from now on and will tell their employees to use that time to think about racial injustice and inequality. I assume it will be observed on either a Monday or Friday, though, cuz three day weekends rock!! Fake bullshit smells bad, too.

My god, is this a troll post? I'm a white person who lives in the Midwest, and this holiday has been celebrated here for many years. There are always articles and pictures about it in the local paper. It's almost exclusively celebrated by blacks, as is Kwanzaa. Made-up holidays, but they've been celebrated for so long, they've become "real" holidays. Kind of like Mother's Day.

OK, seeing that this post has not been FFed into oblivion may be the straw that breaks this camel’s back and puts me off to DataLounge for good. This site can be addictive, but there is too much bigotry here, and the little treasures that used to pop up in threads—old Hollywood secrets, etc.—seem to be gone forever.

Juneteenth is real. I also did not learn about it in public school in Virginia. I did learn about it about a decade ago when I moved to DC and befriended black people from this city, who told me it is a black holiday that commemorates emancipation from slavery, and that black people in DC have always taken off work to celebrate it with their families.

This commemorative day was not invented this year. People who are ignorant about it need to question why they were never taught about it as a pivotal part of US history and not blame black Americans for your own ignorance.

This is the sort of post that is too common on DL and which makes me ashamed to have it in my browser history.

1) It bothers me is that people are too fucking lazy to use three syllables instead of two. It's "June Nineteenth".

2) It wasn't the end of slavery. Kentucky continued to have slavery until the enactment of the 13th Amendment on December 18th, 1865, six months after Juneteenth. So it's based on a falsehood.

This has NOTHING to do with state of the times. This has to do with being MANIPULATED by political agendas and led and fed a load of bullshit!!! JUNTEENTH was completely made up within the last two weeks!!! Again , I am a HUGE George Floyd supporter, but I don't like this bullshit that we're being fed! Something is going on and I don't know what IT is!!!! It's making me feel like I'm going crazy!!!

I heard of it a year or two ago and I am in Ireland. It was the subject of an episode of Black-ish. But yes, still really quite new to me.

R28 You’re a Russian troll propagandist. Fuck off.

It's not new but it is stupid.

I am NOT A Russian Troll!!! This is a real concern for me!!! When things come out of nowhere, something is up!! Something is fishy! And Junteenth is THE EPITOME of something being "fishy"!!

This new word— an amalgam of teeth and June— was invented in 1980.

If you know anything of American history you know of Junteenth , the day of emancipation from slavedy in 1865. Coined in connection with celebrations in Texas in that year the term was recognized throughout the U.S. initially as a celebratory day and then a day of historical importance by black Americans since. Not since last week, not since last month, not since last year... For 155 years.

It was in a sense a private history among black Americans. It certainly was not a national holiday, and was virtually unknown to most white Americans. In the 1920s it gained additional attention with the Harlem Renaissance, the emergence of a black middle class, black media, etc. (Do a Google nGram on the term and you will see the popularity of the term in books stems from around 1920nand rises in sharply to the last year of data (2012 or so).

Juneteenth is the title of a posthumous Ralph Ellison novel. It shows up in film and popular culture, but as a culture apart from mainstream white history -- almost as if there were a black and a white America. Imagine.. No surprise that the day was significant to black Americans or, by extension, that it's mostly unknown to white Americans who are not burdened by a knowledge of many historical facts and dates.

Whether it's the best choice of a day to celebrate black Americans, the day of the official emancipation from slavery, that's perhaps another matter. But an important day. Absolutely. More than a birthday of a single black American chosen to be the sole official representative of his or her race in a nation? Quite possibly so.

Historians learn new things all the time. To me that's what is asked of Juneteenth: to learn something new or to reflect anew on something known. Asking too much? I don't think so.

Do a Google image search for vintage ephemera (like postcards, sheet music or news clippings) about Juneteenth, OP, if you need proof.

Wow, so many trolls on here. "Made up" holiday? Well, there's Christmas, made up four centuries after the death of Jesus. There's Thanksgiving, made up 2 centuries after the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. There's Presidents day, which occurs neither on George Washington's nor Lincoln's birthday. A holiday is just a government's way (or a religion's way) of acknowledging that something of significance happened which is worthy of celebration. Specifically, Juneteenth commemorates Union army general Gordon Granger announcing federal orders in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, proclaiming that all slaves in Texas were free. So it's actually based more specifically on a historic occasion than most of the holidays we celebrate. Now please tell us which holidays are of significance in St. Petersburg and in Moscow.

The best parts of the holiday are the feats of strength and the airing of grievances.

I only have heard about it because a local public access channel would broadcast a parade every year. The national media is trying to make it into a thing this year.

So over it.

So black people will get a [italic] second [/italic] holiday, while no other American demographic get one? (The white males who have holidays have them because of what they DID, not because of what they were) Btw, Pride is not a federal holiday.

Um r39 Labor Day, Memorial Day? Those holidays are routinely associated with white men, although there were plenty of black men in factories, farms and in the military.

The trolls on this thread are like comic book villains in their awfulness.

My town has celebrated it for many years .

I never learned about it in school, but it's a big celebration in my in my suburban Atlanta town. It was a big deal when the city council "let" black people use the town square. It's always been a big party. We just weren't invited and that's totally fine. It should be a national holiday tho.

This is an obvious troll. I learned about Juneteenth over ten years ago at a Black church in Harlem.

Block this OP and your entire DL experience will be better.

God it's like bargain basement 5 trolls for the price of one special day. Thanks op you have confirmed that trolls are running amuck. Fuck your racist divisional propaganda. It's time we start mass greying out these obvious troll threads. Don't leave dl. Make them leave. We got rid of the Daily heil trolls.

What’s amazing about the Russian trolls here who have been working to draw out latent racism in American readers is that their own history of serfdom is one step removed from slavery, and their country will head back in that direction as people of Putin’s ilk continue to amass greater power thanks to their trolling. They are working against their interests for a paycheck and the glory of being anti-American trolls.

I’m really sad for the American people here who read this shit, written as warfare against our country, and allow it to motivate them to be their worst possible selves.

Ignore shows OP wrote this:

“Alcoholism: A Disease?”

This has been thoroughly studied and scientific proof is fuckin' everywhere that addiction is genetic. I've been an alcoholic for 35 years. My dad was. His dad was. His dad was. They all died from alcohol related diseases. It is linked to a gene that Irish decedents carry. It is actually a tolerance gene which makes us able to drink more than the average guy without feeling intoxicated or getting sick, which builds our tolerance to ethanol and sends us down into deep addiction. Our brains can handle high amounts of ethanol, but our livers and other organs can handle the poison and we drink ourselves to death.

(I'm drunk right now!!!)

Start FFing these racially decisive propaganda threads.

R48 And you can be certain that he and all his addict grandfathers were drunk on Russia’s cheapest wodka.

Troll Central. Of course it’s been known by many - racists and not.

Heck, even the #BunkerBoy administration put out Juneteenth acknowledgments every year.

This is a terrible attempt to troll, how did it get 50 replies?

R49 You will notice that this thread was started two hours ago, which is 4:00 a.m. Eastern time, U.S., when the vast majority of actual American people were asleep. However, that is 11:00 a.m. Moscow time.

At the same time, other racist threads attempting to divide black and white Americans were started.

This is standard divide-and-conquer warfare. Russia is expert at it, and so is Donald Trump.

Why do the site administrators allow their website to be weaponized? Does anyone know who they are?

I’m White, and in New England, and have heard about it for longer than I can remember.

OP. You embarass me as a white man. Fuck off!!!

[quote]This is a real concern for me!!! When things come out of nowhere, something is up!!

OP, you're on other threads lamenting the loss of the witty kids of Datalounge. Do you think you're being witty, maybe? You're not.

I suspect that when you sober up tomorrow you won't remember you even posted this, and even if you do you won't admit that you're trolling. Who knows, maybe you don't mean to troll. Maybe you really don't realize that saying "I've never heard of this before; therefore, it's fake" is dumb. But it is very, very dumb.

[quote] Heck, even the #BunkerBoy administration put out Juneteenth acknowledgments every year.

They do?

[quote]My god, is this a troll post?

Yes, I've long since had the racist OP locked on troll.

I've heard about it for years and knew it was a day of celebration for the African American community.

It's always been celebrated in Texas, almost exclusively by black people. It marks the day news of the Emancipation Proclamation reached Texas.

The town I grew up in had a little parade and a community cookout every year, but white people didn't go. It wasn't a controversial event or anything, more like Hannukah or something- somebody else's holiday.

I also find this Juneteenth push crazy weird. Do Canadians or Brits even know what the holiday is? Kind of seems cultural appropriation-ish, ironically.

Another thing I find weird is they've apparently assigned Kwanzaa colors to it, I remember the decorations always being typical red, white, and blue patriotic holiday colors. I saw a bunch of marchers decked out in those colors yesterday and thought it was a protest- nope, just a Juneteenth parade. So weird.

[quote]a second holiday, while no other American demographic get one?

Italian-Americans, through no fault of their own, are being reduced to zero.

I've been white since birth, and that was quite some time ago. I first heard of Juneteenth twenty years ago, in a novel with characters who went to college in Atlanta, IIRC. And people used to talk about it in DC, though I don't remember any particular celebration.

And maybe Frank Pembleton mentioned it on Homicide: Life on the Street. He's who I heard "jump the broom" from for the first time.

What's wrong with it? I think it's a nice idea.

It is now famous all over the world now. Get used to it. Mainstream America is finding out how little they know about their black countrymen. Fascinating watch for us history majors.

R60 I can’t believe I have to ask this, but are you completely unaware of the greater cultural context of this? It’s not “so weird” that there’s a push to acknowledge the day as a national holiday after recent events. The whole country protested and rioted to draw attention to constant killings of black people and injustice and abuses by law enforcers and courts. It’s been a push and pull by a Nazi-level racist presidency and decent American people fighting back.

How the fuck do people think that acknowledging this holiday was a random development?

R64 Because it's a local holiday, with a local focus. Juneteenth isn't "Black People Day" in Texas, it marks a specific event. It feels to me like black activists were looking for a Pride holiday and decided to poach that one because it's established already.

R65 I live in Washington, D.C., and Juneteenth is celebrated/remembered by my black friends here. One of them is 66 years old, she grew up in this city, and her family has celebrated Juneteenth every year for as long as she has been alive. Just because the event that is remembered occurred in Texas, that does not mean that it doesn’t hold national significance. It’s not “a local holiday.” I am telling you what I know, what I have learned from my black friends and coworkers in D.C. Every year, they take the day off work and usually spend it at the National Zoo in a very large community gathering with family so that their children will forge community bonds over their history. Don’t diminish something you don’t know anything about.

R66 So it has always been "Black People Day" outside of Texas, got it. I don't need to get sneered at, thank you.

[quote] It wasn't a controversial event or anything, more like Hannukah or something

I’d say it’s analogous to Passover because both commemorate the end of a people’s bondage.

R68 How spiritual, I meant it was a widely acknowledged minority holiday that wasn't controversial- such as Hannukah is.

R67 see R68

It’s not “black people day.” It’s a day to remember that a population of American people were once enslaved, to support one another and to focus on continuing to make progress toward equality.

I am sorry if you feel like you’re being “sneered at,” but by dismissing the day first as just “a local holiday” and then as “black people day,” you’re showing ignorance and callousness worth sneering at.

There is no national holiday to acknowledge and memorialize this part of American history. And there should be. It represents an independence day for a significant share of American people.

R70 So start that holiday, declare "Emancipation Day." I am not sold on all this wishy-washy spirituality about this.

You want to celebrate Juneteenth? Have a cookout with your local black churches, have a parade with all the black community groups. Have a karate demonstration with the black kids who do karate, the kids who are in dance classes can do a themed dance. That's Juneteenth.

Y'all are like the try-hards who want everyone to give speeches about how thankful they are on Thanksgiving. Trying to turn every event into a chuech service. I call bullshit.

R71 We get it. You’re a racist Texan and proud of it. A dime a dozen. Moving on.

You're ignorant and full of yourself, if you think you're deep, you aren't. You aren't a friend to black people.

It's been celebrated in my city for over 30 years. My neighbors always invite me over for standard American food. I have to put on my eating britches.

The trolls do get angry when you reject their bullshit.

For R57 (excepted from USAToday):

He said he asked several people around him whether they had heard of the holiday, and they said they hadn't. Trump asked an aide during his interview with the Wall Street Journal, and she told him the White House had put out a statement commemorating Juneteenth last year. The White House has done so the past three years of his presidency.

"Oh really? We put out a statement? The Trump White House put out a statement?" Trump said. "OK, OK. Good."

All holidays are "made up", why you give a fuck if people wanna celebrate something they find important?. Just religious holidays are like a month, talk about made up

Grew up with black teachers in the 80's in Chicago, never once did they mention Juneteenth.

[quote]Juneteenth was unknown before this started. I knew about it

Huh.

Invented three days ago, yet Black-ish did an episode three years ago.

[quote]"Juneteenth" did not exist until 3 days ago!!!

So you're saying my 55-year life is part of some simulation that began three days ago?

[quote] R39: So black people will get a second holiday, while no other American demographic get one? (The white males who have holidays have them because of what they DID, not because of what they were) Btw, Pride is not a federal holiday.

If the “first one” that you are referring to is “Martin Luther King Day“; I, personally, consider it a day for all Americans to celebrate his life and works and to honor him. And it is for what he did, right? Not who he was.

Juneteenth would commemorate an event, no different in that sense from Independence Day or Christmas.

And there are regional holidays everywhere. Massachusetts gets St. Patrick’s Day off, though we technically celebrate the day the British ended their occupation of Boston. In my youth, the South didn’t celebrate Lincoln’s birthday, but did celebrate Robert E. Lee Day. I’m sure Utah celebrates a Mormon holiday.

My point being, my God you’ve made a racist post!

I’d like to see Presidents’ Day combined with Martin Luther King Day as “Patriots’ Day”, simply because they follow the Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Years holidays too closely, and I hate Winter holidays. Juneteenth is too close to Independence Day to make a national holiday. We need a holiday in the beginning of August, right between Independence Day, and Labor Day. Any ideas?

R83 A holiday like Juneteenth or Independence day is a commemoration of important historic events, not days off created for the sake of your vacationing convenience. My God.

How dare black people celebrate a momentous occasion in their history, right OP? Juneteenth should be a national holiday, and it is criminal that white people are ignorant of it. I grew up and attended school in Minnesota and Washington State, and never heard about Juneteenth in history class.

22 years ago I moved into my current place, and a few weeks later there was an enormous street festival two blocks up. The street was shut down for a half-mile stretch, and there was music, dancing, food, and big Juneteenth signs, and I was like, what the hell is that.

You know what I did, OP? I went on line and looked up the fucking history of Juneteenth and why it is celebrated, and educated myself. Juneteenth is a celebration of the emancipation of enslaved people, and it should damn well be recognized by everyone.

I'm glad that it is finally being acknowledged, and this cracker-ass white boy is in full support of it being a federal holiday. Unfortunately, the festival, which should be going on right now in my neighborhood, is being held virtually due to Covid. Hopefully, it will be back in full swing next summer.

Educate yourself, OP, you racist piece of shit. Just because you haven't heard of something, doesn't mean that it isn't real.

[quote]A holiday like Juneteenth or Independence day is a commemoration of important historic events, not days off created for the sake of your vacationing convenience. My God.

You might want to rejoin reality.

[quote] R84: [R83] A holiday like Juneteenth or Independence day is a commemoration of important historic events, not days off created for the sake of your vacationing convenience. My God.

I know, but our holidays are all over the place, anyway.

Washington was born when the US was on the Julian calendar. When we converted to the Gregorian calendar, they skipped adopt 10 days in the month - which included his birt(day. It was wiped off the map. Besides, today, he’s lumped together with Lincoln on a varying Monday.

Big Labor got the National holiday it long wanted, but only if it wasn’t on May Day,as in many European countries, because it seemed “commie”.

Christmas is not set on any date that attempts to match that in the Bible. It was placed in December to supersede a Pagan holiday.

We can still commemorate something even if it’s not on the anniversary of a specific event.

With all evidence of the Civil War being systematically erased from the public record, how much longer will Juneteenth survive?

R88 The Emancipation Proclamation and all other legal documentation relating to the Civil War is going to be erased? Wow.

[quote]The Emancipation Proclamation and all other legal documentation relating to the Civil War is going to be erased?

Yes.

Nah. The story will just change to all the white people being pure evil during the Civil War and the slaves all freeing themselves.

Okay faggots. I've figured this out. I come from California which is not a "slave state" which would explain why we Californians have never heard of Junteenth. I noticed that people from Texas or southern states have spoke up about Juneteenth, but no one from the west coast knows jack shit about it. It's not part of our history because slavery is not part of our cultural history being states that were established AFTER 1865. So, I now realize that Juneteenth is a real thing and my lack of awareness is not based on RACISM but lack of exposure to SLAVE history.

R92 Your rant was epic, and sounds like Daffy Duck having a meltdown, so thank you for the entertainment.

LOL r93

R92, California became a state in 1850.