Juneteenth
I’m amazed and heartened by the number of White people I see recognize Juneteenth publicly today. I’m trying very hard not to think “it took you all long enough!”, recognizing that I had no idea what Juneteenth was myself until I was well out of college. Once more, we White people were shielded from the lived reality of millions of our fellow citizens.
But my greater worry about Juneteenth is that it’s another recognition of evils that we White people committed against Black people that gives us an easy out. “It’s terrible that those people were kept in bondage for two years after the Emancipation proclamation, but then the Union soldiers showed up in Galveston Bay and everything was made right!” Juneteenth, particularly for us White people, can fall too easily into the “White Savior” narrative that excuses what actually happened.
So what’s much more on my mind today is Reconstruction. That is, the reason why there were Union soldiers landing in Galveston Bay. I came across this Twitter thread by Michael Harriot that does a much better job than I could of explaining the reality of Reconstruction, but the takeaway is that with Union troops occupying the defeated confederacy there was a brief moment when Black people began to have representation in our government, and then White people started killing them to stop it. When the southern states finally succeeded in ejecting the occupying forces following the extremely messed up election of 1876, they essentially got permission to do whatever they wanted to Black people.
In other words, the Civil War did not end in 1865. The killing and fighting continued for another 11 years, and at the end of that time, the South won. The only reason you don’t know that is because the people who were dying were, by and large, Black people. I was dimly aware of some of what happened during Reconstruction prior to reading the thread, but I definitely didn’t know all of it or the full extent of what happened in the south during Reconstruction. That got me thinking about what sorts of stories and ideas about Reconstruction that I was aware of growing up, and one of the first ones that came to mind was “The Carpetbagger” from Gone with the Wind. In case you’ve forgotten or never saw it, take a look.
So just to break it down, in case it’s not completely obvious: Here we have the defeated Confederate troops, White men all, staggering back to their homes, while a well-dressed, fat, Black man sings his way along, running them over, on his way to take over the South. No mention that the “Land of Grace and Plenty” was built on the backs of slaves. No mention that the actual Black people who “took over” were the people who had lived there under slavery for generations before, and they constituted a majority of the population of several of those states. And certainly no mention that those Confederate troops staggering back very shortly would engage in a campaign of outright slaughter of their Black neighbors.
And this scene is in a film that is still widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest American movies of all time.
If you are a White person around my age, this should enrage you. The stories you were told about the Civil War and Reconstruction were lies. The images of the Civil War and Reconstruction that populated your childhood and most of your life were not real. Your privilege has sheltered you from the knowledge of what we White people actually did, and you owe it to yourself to get educated and start trying to make it better. So this Juneteenth, spend a little less time thinking about those slaves in Galveston who were finally informed that they were “free,” and instead go read a book that talks frankly about the reality of what happened after the Civil War. From Michael Harriot’s thread above, here’s one to start with.
But my greater worry about Juneteenth is that it’s another recognition of evils that we White people committed against Black people that gives us an easy out. “It’s terrible that those people were kept in bondage for two years after the Emancipation proclamation, but then the Union soldiers showed up in Galveston Bay and everything was made right!” Juneteenth, particularly for us White people, can fall too easily into the “White Savior” narrative that excuses what actually happened.
So what’s much more on my mind today is Reconstruction. That is, the reason why there were Union soldiers landing in Galveston Bay. I came across this Twitter thread by Michael Harriot that does a much better job than I could of explaining the reality of Reconstruction, but the takeaway is that with Union troops occupying the defeated confederacy there was a brief moment when Black people began to have representation in our government, and then White people started killing them to stop it. When the southern states finally succeeded in ejecting the occupying forces following the extremely messed up election of 1876, they essentially got permission to do whatever they wanted to Black people.
In other words, the Civil War did not end in 1865. The killing and fighting continued for another 11 years, and at the end of that time, the South won. The only reason you don’t know that is because the people who were dying were, by and large, Black people. I was dimly aware of some of what happened during Reconstruction prior to reading the thread, but I definitely didn’t know all of it or the full extent of what happened in the south during Reconstruction. That got me thinking about what sorts of stories and ideas about Reconstruction that I was aware of growing up, and one of the first ones that came to mind was “The Carpetbagger” from Gone with the Wind. In case you’ve forgotten or never saw it, take a look.
So just to break it down, in case it’s not completely obvious: Here we have the defeated Confederate troops, White men all, staggering back to their homes, while a well-dressed, fat, Black man sings his way along, running them over, on his way to take over the South. No mention that the “Land of Grace and Plenty” was built on the backs of slaves. No mention that the actual Black people who “took over” were the people who had lived there under slavery for generations before, and they constituted a majority of the population of several of those states. And certainly no mention that those Confederate troops staggering back very shortly would engage in a campaign of outright slaughter of their Black neighbors.
And this scene is in a film that is still widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest American movies of all time.
If you are a White person around my age, this should enrage you. The stories you were told about the Civil War and Reconstruction were lies. The images of the Civil War and Reconstruction that populated your childhood and most of your life were not real. Your privilege has sheltered you from the knowledge of what we White people actually did, and you owe it to yourself to get educated and start trying to make it better. So this Juneteenth, spend a little less time thinking about those slaves in Galveston who were finally informed that they were “free,” and instead go read a book that talks frankly about the reality of what happened after the Civil War. From Michael Harriot’s thread above, here’s one to start with.
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