I see a number of organizations are posting on FB about Juneteenth.
The thing is, before now, nobody ever seemed to really care about Juneteenth except folks in the South (and then, generally only black folks in the South) until suddenly it became chic to show your non-racist chops by talking about things you never talked about before because previously they were not important to you (or more to the point, to your fans/customers/etc).
My prediction is that by next year, Juneteenth will lapse once again into a holiday that only certain people celebrate or notice.
And I’m not trying to be a butthead, here. I fully understand what Juneteenth is about and I’m all for people celebrating it.
But don’t turn it into a commercialized observance like so many other things. I don’t want to see ads in the Sunday paper for the Juneteenth furniture and mattress sales. Face it, I’m a Jew, and Passover is all about celebrating liberation from slavery. But it’s a holiday for Jews, not for the general damn public (which is why you’ll never see an “ecumenical” Passover seder held by Jews on the first night of Passover — first night’s for Jews only).
And I don’t imagine the black community wants to see Juneteenth commercialized, either. But I haven’t asked them, so I won’t presume to speak for them (and wouldn’t anyway; I’m not black, and I haven’t — as a former boss of mine often put it — walked in their shoes).
So I will say, simply, Happy Juneteenth to those who celebrate it, and who memorialize and commemorate their freedom from slavery.