Fuck Yall’s Juneteenth Celebrations
“When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed, but when we are silent we are still afraid, so it is better to speak.”
— Audre Lorde
Here we go again. It’s a year later and we’re back where we started.
It’s so disheartening, although not surprising, to see historically and predominantly white arts organizations and cultural institutions pulling out all the stops (and red flags) to acknowledge Juneteenth this year. After all the hollow statements of solidarity — which I expressed as extremely problematic in a Medium article last year, I find myself in the same space — giving a metaphorical and literal side eye to our sector.
Did we not learn anything in the past year?
We’ve already established the ways in which racism, and specifically, anti-Blackness show up in our organizations. Over the past year, white institutions have held countless panel discussions, open forums, conferences, and town halls around the subject, naming the myriad of transgressions organizations have “unknowingly” enacted against Black and brown folks. And they acknowledged that they’d do better. Well, that’s step number one. Step number two? Do better. And doing better does not mean a Juneteenth celebration or a day off for your employees in order to showcase the hubris of your wokeness…
