Juneteenth Is for Everyone!

 On This Historic Day...

I would like to formally welcome our nation's newest Federal National Holiday.

Also, I'd like to say:  It's about damn time!

Juneteenth--the celebration commemorating the full emancipation of the slaves in the last Confederate holdout state of Texas--originated in Galveston on June 19th, 1965, with the reading of General Order No. 3 by Union General Gordon Granger.  Celebrations of Juneteenth date to at least 1866, with local church-based gatherings (because white people refused to allow Black people to celebrate anywhere else);  from these, the holiday has spread across the nation--first through the South, then to the North--and has grown into a celebration not only of Black Independence, but also of Black culture and food.  It has even made its way to Mexico, courtesy of the Mascogos, descendants of a group of Black Seminoles who escaped slavery in 1852 and settled in Coahuila.

All this is more or less regurgitated Wiki.  But this lowly worm would like to advance the radical notion that Juneteenth is not just a "Black holiday."  This holiday is for everyone!

Okay, before anyone gets mad...

No person is an island.  We all need each other.  And back in the Bad Old Days, when a Black individual was considered 3/5 of a person for census purposes, there was a group of allies who shone brightly in those dark times.

I speak, of course, of the Religious Society of Friends, better-known as the Quakers.  Among other things, they were the most vocal of the Abolitionists.  This was no accident, nor was it a stance of convenience;  the Society's founder, George Fox, claimed to have received a direct revelation from God that slavery was wrong, and that Fox should spread this word to others.  However my readers may feel about people who claim to have heard the voice of God,  I would have to say that in this case, Fox did hear rightly.  His obedience, and that of other members of the Society, led to the publishing of much anti-slavery literature, petitions to various levels of government (local to [post-Revolutionary] federal) for an end to slavery in the nation, and the founding of the escape network widely known as the Underground Railroad.

Efforts such as these contributed to the attitudes of other Abolitionist groups and individuals, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose novel Uncle Tom's Cabin sold some 300,000 hardback copies in the United States alone.  The novel raised the debate about slavery to such a pitch that President Abraham Lincoln, upon meeting Mrs. Stowe, referred to her as the "little woman" whose book had caused a "big war"--meaning, of course, the Civil War.

Meanwhile, down on the plantation...

...The slaves were freeing themselves!

They ran away from their so-called "masters" and headed North, where they built new lives and told their stories, which were published and spread by Abolitionists.  Some of them became "conductors" on the Underground Railroad, returning to the South to help free more of their people from slavery.  The most famous of these was, of course, Harriet Tubman, who never lost a "passenger" and has been lionized in stories and (finally) a major motion picture.  My favorite book about her was one I read as a kid called Harriet Tubman:  The Moses of Her People.

Now, the slaveholding South believed that whites were inherently superior to Blacks, and that slavery was the "natural state" of the Black person.  But you couldn't prove that by the actions of Black people, who were not only escaping to the North, but also rebelling in ways large and small.  The best-known rebellion was that of Nat Turner, who led an uprising of over 70 Black people, both slave and free, who killed 55 whites before the revolt was shut down by white militia forces.  (An interesting side note:  This rebellion almost led to a gradual emancipation.  Nat Turner's confession was published as a book, and some white folks in Virginia, reminded of the dangers of slavery, presented petitions that would gradually end slavery.  But the majority, not wanting to lose their slaves, ixnayed that.)

People who want to be free and are willing to risk their lives to get that freedom are not "natural slaves."  That this was finally recognized and fought for by allies and others does not diminish the spirit of the Blacks who escaped and rebelled;  it affirms that their spirit is strong and true.

This, fellow worms, is called facing reality.

The culmination of all that blood, sweat and tears was a set of Constitutional Amendments.

Amendments don't pass by themselves, you know!

The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution--known as the Reconstruction Amendments--were passed by the required 2/3 majority of Congress in 1865 (the 13th, which freed the slaves; the Civil War wasn't even over yet), 1866 (the 14th, to counter white southern opposition to the 13th), and 1869 (the 15th, which was passed to counter--you guessed it--racist opposition to Black voting rights).

But remember, that's only part of the process.  After their passage, the amendments had to be ratified by a whopping 3/4 of the states.  The miracle is that it not only happened, but happened quickly:  The 13th Amendment took only 10 months and 6 days to get that majority;  the 14th, 2 years and 26 days;  and the 15th, 11 months and 8 days!  In fact, by 1871, 31 out of the 37 states had fully ratified the 14th and 15th Amendments.  There were 11 original members of the Confederacy, so that means that five of those ratifying states were originally rebels to the Union.

It wasn't only the Black vote that achieved that.  It was good white allies, many of whom were probably involved in the Abolitionist movement before the war;  but that vote probably also included a number of white people who were just plain ashamed of themselves.  Shame may be a poor reason for doing the right thing, but it sure beats doing the wrong thing because of cowardice.

What I am not saying...

There has been a lot of talk in recent years about the "white savior" factor.  Movies such as Driving Miss Daisy, The Help, Hidden Figures, and most recently Green Book, have been strongly criticized for their portrayal of helpless Black people who needed the help of whites to get the respect and credit they deserve from society.

When I say that Juneteenth is for everybody, I am not saying that "if it weren't for white people, Black people would never have won their freedom."  No, what I'm saying is that bringing this holiday into the full view of all Americans gives every one of us the chance to learn some history and celebrate together...and declare our commitment to doing better by each other than our ancestors have done.

In Conclusion...

If you are invited to a Juneteenth celebration, or there is a Juneteenth street fair in your area, by all means, go.  See some great art, hear some great music, eat some great food.  Listen to the readings, be humble, and definitely be sure you know all the words to "Lift Every Voice And Sing."

We've been backsliding, children.  Time to repent and move forward.

Happy Juneteenth, everyone!

If We Were a Christian Nation...

 That's what we say, but...

A great deal of the anti-immigrant grumbling I hear on a semi-weekly basis has been about three things:  point of origin/race, poverty, and religion.

I used the fore slash on the first point because when pressed on the issue, the person who said it will backpedal and say something like  "I'm not prejudiced" or "I'm not racist" or "Not that there's anything wrong with coming from (fill in underdeveloped country/region)."

The unspoken addition to all those sentences is "...but..." followed by a sentence that proves that the person is, in fact, prejudiced, racist, and opposed to that undeveloped country/region.

The second point is even more insidious, in that it carries the assumption that a poor immigrant is somehow lazier than a home-born US citizen, or that if too many of "them" are allowed in, our country will be just as poor and badly-managed as their countries of origin are.  

These assumptions show a near-complete ignorance of our history--former immigration waves, including the Irish, Eastern Europeans, Asians, and the forced immigration and enslavement of Black people, have grown and improved the USA on all levels.  (The Black sons and daughters of the Middle Passage have yet to reap the fruits of their labors, a situation that we ought to find appalling but do not.)

Such assumptions also show a bias toward the faulty idea that poverty and ill-management are inborn traits...a belief strongly held by Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood.  But we know more now about the environmental stresses that keep poor families stuck in their condition like a phonograph needle in a scratched LP groove--how poor nutrition stunts children's mental development, which in turn leads to poor grades and behavioral problems, which shoves these unfortunates into the world with few skills and fewer opportunities, which leads to despair, apathy, crime, and violence.  And the cycle continues when these young people produce children of their own.

But that's environment.  Put people like that into a better environment, with better opportunities, and they will do better than their forefathers.

Then there's the point about religion.

I remember a number of years ago, there was a big flap in one of the southern states, where a Muslim woman objected to having to remove her hijab (head scarf) for her driver's license photo.  I can't remember what the courts decided about it, but I do remember an Internet posting that my mom forwarded to me titled "Immigrants, Not Americans, Must Adapt."  The writer was sick and tired of having to move over and make room for the customs and cultures of those who come here from somewhere else.  The hijab was only one of his gripes;  he also objected to having to accommodate people who don't speak English (never mind that English is very difficult to learn as an adult, especially if a person has never spoken any other than his cradle language.  Fun fact:  The more languages you learn as a child, the easier it is to learn more languages later.  Not so fun fact:  Most poor immigrants have never had the opportunity to learn any but their own language.) and the overwhelming of "our" culture by all these weird new customs.  His opinion in a nutshell (emphasis on "nut") was that immigrants should forget their own languages, religions, and cultures, learn English, and be hyper-patriots who salute the flag and never say a bad word about the good ol' US of A.

The point being...?

Along with those grumbles against immigrants, I also hear about how we are a "Christian nation."  That's the accepted reasoning for not allowing people in who practice some other religion (especially Islam, although white supremacists object to Judaism as well).

I would laugh at this if I weren't so horrified.

I remember reading a book called In God We Trust by Norman Cousins.  It was an overview of the religious beliefs (or lack of them) of our Founding Fathers, and it was quite the eye-opener:  With a very few exceptions, most of the FF's were Deists, meaning they believed in God as Creator of everything, but also believed that He created Man as a reasoning creature with the power to choose between good and evil.  Having done that, He left the universe to its own devices, trusting us to make the right choices for ourselves and our communities.

One of those Deists, Thomas Paine, was a militant believer in the triumph of Reason over emotional religion (there was a Great Awakening in progress right before the Revolution), and he wrote a book titled The Age of Reason in which he ridiculed the Biblical account of Creation, the idea of God actually speaking to people, and any miracles whatsoever.  Thomas Jefferson, another Deist, produced a version of the New Testament that excised all the miracles of Jesus and any of His words regarding His Divinity.  Jefferson firmly believed that Jesus was a great moral teacher, nothing more;  he blamed the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation on the corruption of Jesus' teachings by Paul and others.

Ben Franklin, though still a Deist, was much gentler toward those who disagreed with him.  He heard the preaching of George Whitefield, whose dramatic style of speaking helped fuel the Great Awakening, and though he had great respect for Whitefield's powerful sermons and their effect on people, he could never bring himself to convert to Whitefield's brand of Evangelicalism.  Franklin was more concerned with living a moral life than with any ecstatic "new birth" experience.

Of the very few who weren't Deists, one (I think it was John Jay) was a militant anti-Catholic, and another--George Washington--kept his religion very private.

If any doubt remains in the mind of the reader, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment ought to erase that:  "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or preventing the free exercise thereof."  In modern language, that means the federal government is not allowed to create a national religion, favor any existing religion, or keep people from worshipping any god they wish...or none, if they so desire.  James Madison said that the reason for that clause was to keep the religious wars of Europe out of the United States.  He also believed that pure religion flourished better without government influence.

Why the myth dragged on

So how did we get to thinking we were a Christian nation when our founders weren't Christians and our Constitution wasn't designed for it?

Well, in simple terms, Christians were in the majority.  Mostly they were Anglicans, but there were Methodists, Friends (Quakers), and Catholics as well.  Later came the Baptists and Lutherans, as well as some odd spin-offs such as the Shakers, the Christian Scientists, and the Mormons;  but all those groups at least named Christ as having some influence on them.  States had religious laws on their books (Blue Laws--no businesses open on Sunday;  adultery and homosexual acts as prosecutable crimes), and no one who had any influence objected.  In fact, business leaders knew that belonging to the "right" church was essential to their standing in a community.

But as time went on, we began to get people coming in who weren't even nominally Christian:  Jewish people, Asian people (Confucianism,--more an ethical system than a religion--Shintoism, and Buddhism), Indian people (Hinduism and various branchings), and Middle Eastern people (mostly Islam, but also some Zoroastrianism as well).  As these groups and their influence grew, the influence of Christianity as the dominant religion has waned, and more legal challenges have been raised to counter the comfortable assumption that Christianity is the only right way to define our nation.

Some people--especially if they adhere to the teachings of various loud-mouthed televangelists--believe that this trend is a sign of the End of Days.  I don't think so.  If we want to be Biblical about it, God has only ever made a specific covenant with one people group:  the Israelites.  The Israel of the Old Testament was supposed to be a theocracy, with God Himself as their King.  After some disastrously-corrupt priests abused their power, the people rejected that model and asked for a human king, which God allowed.

But the New Testament changed that.  Now God's covenant is with anyone, anywhere, who trusts Jesus Christ for salvation.  Different denominations argue about what that means, but we all agree that Jesus is at the heart of the matter.

And what does that mean for America?

Well, it means that we American Christians ought to behave like Christ's followers, and not go around judging others.  Which brings me back to my original title.

If we were a Christian nation...

• We would not go around bragging about how great we are.
• We would seek peace with all nations, whether they agreed with us or not, and would go to war only as a last resort.
• We would care more for the poor, the sick, the oppressed, and the prisoners in our midst.
• We would spend our money on things that benefit everyone.
• We would have upright leaders who didn't take bribes (read:  campaign contributions).
• We would have a justice system that dispensed justice based on law rather than wealth or influence.
• We would be more concerned about pollution and climate change, since God set humanity as stewards of His creation.
• We would repent of the evils we have done in the past to Native Americans, Blacks, Nisei, and many others, and we would do whatever we could to make things right.

And finally:

• We would welcome immigrants into the country, since everything we have is the gift of God, intended to be shared with others.

That's what we would do, if our nation were truly Christian.  Since we don't do those things--or do them inconsistently--outsiders have every right to doubt our Christian claims.  After all, Jesus said that a person's true character would be known by his or her "fruit," or acts.  Given our ongoing actions as a nation, those words ought to scare us shitless.

Notes from a (Social) Distance II: The Unwanted Sequel

Remember when...

..."Rona" was a gossip columnist?

...the only vaccines you needed as an adult were for shingles, the flu, and tetanus?

...your only worry about that person sitting way too close to you at the bar was that they might be hitting on you?

Times sure have changed, huh?

They have.  Permanently.

In some ways, it's for the better.  About 73% of the adults in this country are fully vaccinated against COVID;  I don't have the stats for children.  And President Biden has done a great job getting the vax rollout done, despite his infamous predecessor having left no plan at all for getting the shots into our arms.  Building a plan from scratch that quickly, with no cooperation during the transition?  That alone should win Biden a second term, in my book.

And we now can get rapid tests that you can use at home to tell you if you have COVID!

But...

Things are worse, too.  Because so many people haven't yet been vaxxed--not only here, but around the world--COVID has had a chance to mutate.  We're now up to a variant called Omicron, which is way more contagious than its parent.   The vax won't stop it, but it does at least help your body fight it... but the variant is still highly dangerous for older people, even if they are vaxxed!  (And the at-home test doesn't always catch the Omicron variant in a timely fashion!)

The pharma folks are working on a booster that will protect against Omicron, but it's one of those impossible races against time that only work out in the movies.  Which means that COVID, whatever the mutation, is well on its way to becoming endemic.

In fact, the odds are high that sooner or later, we all, vaxxed and unvaxxed, will get some mutation of COVID.

Welcome to the new normal.

We still have the conspiracy nuts who try to tell everyone that the virus is a government plot (weirdly, they point to the mutations to prove it), that Dr. Fauci helped the Chinese create it, that the vaccine is made out of aborted stem cells, that this or that quack remedy will either prevent or cure COVID....It never ends.  Meta and Twitter ban accounts when the misinformation gets too egregious, but those accounts mutate like...well, like a virus.

Also, there are the alt-right politicians who refuse to impose masking, social distancing, and vaccine mandates on their populations, protesting that such measures put too much stress on people and the economy.  There is some truth to that, but how difficult is it to find compromises?  Remember how I talked about the curbside pickups for take-out food and groceries?  Those things are still around.  And the vax bill is being picked up by the federal government--I definitely prefer that to them buying a bunch of new weapons or arming the next edition of the contras.

The right-wing politicians point to the learning problems that kids have had due to lack of actual classroom time.  Distance learning, it turns out, didn't work as well as we hoped because the kids didn't cope well with the isolation.  And most children who catch COVID have mild symptoms.  So if the teachers get vaxxed and boostered, we should be okay, right?

Well...yeah.  The problem is that when the children come home and bring the 'rona with them without knowing it, the entire family is at risk.  The adults, even the vaxxed people, will have to isolate until they can be tested, thus losing time from work.  And any close contact with Grandpa could kill him.

It's one of those Gordian knots that can't be solved by cutting it in half like Alexander the Great did.  But there are people on both sides in such high dudgeon over the school issue that nobody is working on a solution.  Somebody needs to start teasing those tangles apart, and soon.

So what now?

Now, we wait.  We do the best we can.  We get vaxxed, get boosted, try to avoid the unmasked idiots, and hope that at some future time we'll be able to go to a concert where we can dance with strangers in the aisles and not worry about getting sick.  We order takeout instead of going to the restaurant (unless they have an outdoor patio), and at home we try new recipes from YouTube, Reddit, and Insta.  We watch live-stream church services instead of attending in person.  At work, we mask up with a filter insert, and hope everyone else will keep six feet or more away from us.

And we pray.