Happy Juneteenth, Nobody is Free Until Everyone is Free

I’ve got a bit of a grudge going for Dave Chappelle.  I don’t think about things or people I hate all the time, so it doesn’t come up much for me, but when it does, I’m like, fuck that guy a lot.

There was an episode of his show where some goofy pimps time traveled to the days of slavery, and one of them shot an overseer.  The meta-laff was that this was supposedly a skit that had been cut from an earlier show by execs who didn’t think killing slavers was funny.  I had a good time watching that a million years ago.

For those who don’t remember his story after that point in his career, he had a nervous breakdown and broke contract to abandon the show and chill out in Africa for some years.  Comedy Central ran what was left of his show as reruns for a very long time – probably still does.  Then, at long last, Dave emerged from the earth like Punxsutawney Phil, to chip into the discourse of our times.  What did he purchase with the remainder of his cultural cachet?

He defended shitler’s “grab them by the pussy” remark like a month ahead of his first election.  Then he fucked off again for a while, during which time he did some few standup shows.  At one of these, he was photographed partying with Apartheid Junior and some other Bay Area heels.

After that he really got my attention by going full transphobe.  One of the subjects of his “humor” was a trans woman who subsequently committed suicide.  I imagine she had other reasons as well, but still.

But let’s back that up a moment.  Chappelle has partied with the guy who is currently egging on white supremacist riots in northern Ireland, who unambiguously heiled hitler at the grabber’s second inauguration.  Do you suppose the has-been comedian has any misgivings about the company he’s kept?

I’m sure he doesn’t, because like the terfs who thought they could defend cis-women’s rights by killing trans women, like the working class white ameriKKKans who thought they could protect the working class by killing mexicans, he makes this one important mistake.  He believes you can discriminate against one oppressed class of people without empowering the oppressors of your own people.

It can’t be done.  You cannot separate out the struggles of the oppressed and say one group deserves it, one group is a reasonable sacrifice.  This is basic fucking shit, as basic as it gets.  Freedom can only be protected by solidarity between the oppressed, whatever their differences.

You don’t have to like or even care about other people on your side, as long as you can stifle your shitty mouth when you’re tempted to let your prejudice run – when you’re tempted to give aid and succor to the Fourth Reich.  Do people like Dave Chappelle care about his fellow black people?

I don’t buy it for a fucking second.  Like the recurring theme in Russian folk tales of a decent pauper who becomes a shitty prince, people get X amount of dollars and decide they hate taxes more than they love human rights.

Biggie Smalls once said, “Fuck the world, don’t ask me for shit. And everything you’ve got, you work hard for it.”  I say many hands make light work, and nobody in the fucking world should have to truly work hard, as many hands as we have.  If everybody who hits the sixth zero in their bank account turns nazi, it’s time to make sure nobody gets that dollar.

Freedom for all oppressed people.  Traitors eat shit.  Long live the fighters.

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DEIteenth

When Biden was in office, the house and senate were dominated by rethugs, one way or another, right?  It felt like it, whatever the makeup of those bodies.  Somehow Juneteenth was made into the law of the land.  I assumed it was by executive action, but no, except insofar as the vice president was the tie-breaking vote.  Federal holidays have to be approved by the legislature.  Thank you, Mrs. Harris.  Surely, this holiday is abhorrent to those people who wistfully pine for the days when chattel slavery wasn’t restricted to the prison system.

In fact, does it fit their nebulous definition of evil wicked horrible DEI?  Does that mean it must be expunged?  But it was passed into law by the legislature, and would need to be repealed through the shit-flinging simian action of those twin asshole repositories.  Surely they won’t get that done in time for the occasion tomorrow.  What then?

I wonder that shitler might use an executive order to try to rename it “Orange Americans Day.”  Or just leave the day intact but use its existence to add insult to some other injurious bullshit.  Of particular relevance, he could do something to expand the horrors of the prison industrial complex.  I’m composing this post on the 16th.  Let’s see what has come to pass by the time it comes out of queue…

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Last Post Art – Juneteenth

Lest anyone get the impression I’m not deep, allow me to present some art worthy of a junior high student’s pee-chee margins.  The skull is white greed, black blood on its mouth.  As the date of Juneteenth was the result of freedom delayed, we see spirits escaping the greedy thing gradually but triumphantly.  Of course, an artistic image is what you make of it, and there may be bad interpretations of this that I haven’t conceived in this moment.  And with that, I’m done!

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Another Thought – Juneteenth

This is a bit of a lazylinking driveby post.  You’re going to see a lot of legitimate grousing from black people today about Juneteenth becoming a federal holiday and commercialized, how token gestures are useless.  But there were African Americans that pushed to make this happen – check out the article on NPR – and let’s not sour their celebration too much, here at least.  I doubt any of them are reading this, but I hope they’re having a very nice holiday today.

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ETA: And another thought!  I hadn’t read the article PZ linked to on the FtB Juneteenth hub post until just now.  Having read that, doesn’t the very fact we’re doing this seem like a violation of the fourth of their (yes, a bit jokey) Juneteenth Commandments?  Well, I started doing this, might as well ride this embarrassing rocket all the way down.

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Opening Thoughts – Juneteenth

Non-African-American-having FtB is throwing a Juneteenth celebration of sorts, as befits the year it became a federal holiday in a still quite white supremacist nation.  We’re tryin’, baby.  As people who care about human rights, dignity, and freedom, we have something to celebrate in the emancipation.  Thanks to the people who made that happen, by force of law, force of arms, and force of persuasion, we don’t have to live in a country where our fellow human beings are overtly enslaved.

Unfortunately, there was a loophole in that amendment, allowing the slavery of prison labor.  And worse, even if we closed that loophole, systems have evolved over time to take advantage of a desperate illegal immigrant workforce in slave conditions.  Some “illegal” workers are laboring in the open with a crude bare minimum of protection and pay, but many people who come to this country don’t have that much, and become literal slaves – shackled by the threat of state violence, deportation, etc.  It’s like the hellish bait-and-switch they use in Dubai, working immigrant muslims to death to build their gilded towers, except here it’s people from all over the world doing agricultural work, or house work, or – in the only type fuckers are ostensibly bothered by – sex work.

So while slavery persists on American soil, let Juneteenth be a rallying day for those who would fight it.  Later today I will post about the more celebratory side of things, but for this morning, some bitter coffee for the people.

And one more thought.  Not to undercut my comrades here, but I feel like this isn’t my day to celebrate?  Solemn remembrance, reflection, putting in work for the cause, OK.  But the barbecue?  The jocularity?  That belongs black folks, as it has, as it continues to be regardless of its now official seal.  This isn’t strictly a feeling about appropriation or some other SJW rhetoric.

Think of it this way – emancipation wasn’t the gift of a good thing, it was the removal of (one) bad thing.  Let’s say you spent your whole life under a rock that somebody else put there.  Eventually the guy who put the rock there comes along and helps you roll it aside.  He doesn’t help you stand up – you have to do that for yourself.  Once you are standing there, still crippled from a life on the ground, you might feel like celebrating.  But do you really feel like extending that celebration to the smug guy congratulating himself for eventually changing his mind about the rock?

There are thousands of African Americans with my last name.  I don’t have to look up a genealogy to know that means some of my ancestors were human filth that had to be murdered or forced at gunpoint to practice the most basic of human decency.  It means all those people are surely my brothers and sisters by a father who was one of the very worst types of rapist.

I’m not at all interested in the stories of white people like myself who can make this claim, whether it’s backed up by historical record or not.  Please don’t talk about your slaver ancestors in my comment section.  There’s probably another blog on this network more amenable to that, and that’s fine.  I only bring this up to say that my people did some dirt and profited from it, and I still profit from it every day, whether it’s apparent or not.  As long as that’s the case, I will let other people do the cake and cookies on June 19ths.

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