Shouldn’t Juneteenth Be Decembixth?

This will initially seem crazy but follow my logic. Actually, it’s not my logic but the logic of “wokism.’

Recently we established “Juneteenth” as a national holiday and celebrated it nationwide for the first time. The geniuses who sold it to us snookered us, especially the black celebrants. Huh?

“Juneteenth” is not a celebration of anything black people, the freed slaves, did. It’s a white man’s work. In fact, the white man responsible for “Juneteenth” might be described as the recipient of “white privilege.” And, after all, isn’t anything a white man does, tainted?

Fact – we are being told that as the children of immigrants who were not even here in the sixteenth, seventeenth, or eighteenth century, and were never involved in the slave trade anywhere, unless maybe our ancestors were enslaved by someone, if we’re white, we are guilty. Others are telling us that even with psychological counseling we might still never recover. Still others are suggesting 5 years of group meetings where we self-flagellate is the answer.

The new dialogue seems to be that nothing good can come from white people. So, how does a white man of above average privilege factor in to “Juneteenth”? What good could come of anything a white person does?

First the privilege explanation: the white man I speak of was one United States General Gordon Granger, a privileged white man that rose through the ranks of the Union Army to the rank of General. Not your everyday feat and one reserved to the few and, thus, proud. Isn’t that a near cousin of “privilege”?

On June 19th, 1865, federal troops, under the command of General Gordon Granger, entered victoriously into Galveston, Texas. Texas was the last bastion of the CSA and was finally vanquished.

Were the slaves ultimately free now that General Lee had surrendered two months earlier to General Grant at Appomattox? Were the slaves free because the Emancipation Proclamation, published two and a half years earlier, freed them? No and No. Remember, slavery was still the law in two Union Border States, Delaware and Kentucky, until the 13th Amendment was ratified and freed all US slaves in December of 1865, fully six months after June 19th, 1865, the day that has come to be celebrated as “Juneteenth.”

Which brings us back to, what then does “Juneteenth” commemorate? Not the end of slavery; slavery still existed in the Union, supposedly the bastion of abolitionists and those fighting to bring about emancipation. So, were the slaves in Galveston celebrating the end of the war and their, new found, freedom? The 13th Amendment, freeing all slaves, was still six months away. So were the slaves in Texas free? Not until the privileged white General Granger stood on Texas soil and read “General Orders No. 3,” declaring “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.” But, in fact, while the slaves in Texas were now free because General Granger made it so by the might of the Union Army that he represented, “all slaves” were not free. There were slaves in the Union that would not be free for six more months. Additionally, the reference to the “Executive of the United States” responsible for the, so-called, “proclamation” had been assassinated two months earlier. And, the “proclamation,” dated January 1st, 1863, had not freed one slave. The slaves that it purported to free were all in slave states no longer under the control of President Lincoln and the slave states that he did control, still in the Union, were allowed to keep their slaves upon promise not to secede . (Is this the basis of our government giving immunity from prosecution to murderers who agree to testify against other murderers? That’s tongue-in-cheek, but not that far fetched.)

Finally, to complete my thesis, while “all slaves” were not freed by the “Executive’s proclamation” of January 1st, 1863, nor were any slaves in Texas freed by such. The slaves in Texas were informed of their freedom on June 19th, 1865, by force of the Union Army coming to bear there and the actions of General Granger. In fact, on June 18th, 1865, they were still slaves.

The other “all slaves,” in the Union enclaves of Delaware and Kentucky, well… they would have to wait for the 13th Amendment. So, rather than “Juneteenth,” the result of the Texas slaves being freed by the actions of General Gordon Granger, being the celebration of the final emancipation of slaves in the US, shouldn’t we be, more correctly, celebrating the final ratification of the 13th Amendment ending all slavery, say, as “Decembixth” (emphasis on “thhh”)? Not as snappy as “Juneteenth,” but more accurate.

Unless, of course, “we choose truth over facts,” another genius Executive proclamation.