endwhitesilence

Today is Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day.

It commemorates the day when slavery officially ended in the US: June 19, 1865. President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. But it took two and a half years for that news to reach all of the Confederate states. Weeks after Confederate General Robert E Lee surrendered in 1865, Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, TX, with Union soldiers and relayed the news: that "in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States," all of Texas's approximately 250,000 enslaved people were now free.

And was it immediate?

Unfortunately not. Some plantation owners waited until after the year's harvest to comply. But the date took on a profound meaning for Black communities. In the 1870s, a group of Black residents in Houston raised the money to buy 10 acres of land and create Emancipation Park – a place to formally celebrate Juneteenth. As Black families migrated across the states in the years following the Civil War, many took Juneteenth celebrations with them. But under the Jim Crow era, some Black Americans were barred from accessing public spaces, and Juneteenth celebrations were often confined to the Black community.

Is it considered a holiday?

In some places. In 1980, Texas became the first to name Juneteenth a state holiday. And currently, all but three states recognize it. (Looking at you Hawaii, North Dakota, and South Dakota.) The holiday is considered a time to reflect and celebrate liberation – marked with things like parades, music, and food. If you want to celebrate virtually, here's a list of events to tune into. This year, corporate America is getting on board in light of the nationwide protests sparked by George Floyd's death and the fight against systemic racism. Companies like Nike, Mastercard, Twitter, and the NFL are giving employees the day off. But there's also been a push for years to make it a federal holiday – whichwould close down most government offices, schools, banks, and many businesses for the day.

How's that working out?

It's going. In recent years, both the Senate and the House have introduced legislation to recognize the day as "Juneteenth Independence Day." And lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are working on legislation to make it a federal holiday. One Mississippi-based organization, the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation, has been keeping the pressure on Congress to do so. It also started an initiative aimed at incorporating the history of Juneteenth into school curriculums. If you want to take action, you can
call your congressional reps. Or sign this petition.

link.theskimm.com/click/20666190.2492922/aHR0cHM6Ly9za2ltbXR...

#Juneteenth #FreedomDay #blacklivesmatter #endsilence #endwhitesilence #BlackHistory #Racism #WhiteSupremacy #ErasedBlackHistory #GeorgeFloydProtests #SpeakTruthToPower

I Have Questions for Danny White Man

I call you that because it is what you called yourself. White man.

Why did you decide to come to my bedroom when I was 10 years old?

Why did you abuse me sexually?

What was it about me? You had never spoken to me before.

You had never treated me like a sister. You only treated me with disdain.

Was it because of your status?

Was it because of my status?

You were the white supremacist privileged son, little brother to 2 older law-enforcement officers. You received your racism with your mothers’s milk.

I was a foster child that had been discarded. I was a child without a mother or a father. I was a child that you refused to look into the eyes of.

You asked me a question before you did what you did to me. You asked me if I had my period yet. I was shaking but I answered you truthfully. I had not yet menstruated. I was 10.

Did you do this to me more than once? My child’s mind will not give me this detail.

Did you do this to my sisters?

How many times?

How do you sleep at night?

How do you sleep at night, Danny White Man?

# whitesupremacism #blacklivesmatter #ChildAbuse #childsexualsurvivors #ChildSexualAbuse #PTSD #CPTSD #Racism #fosterchildren #FosterKids #fosterchildabuse #racistlawenforcement #WhitePrivilege #endwhitesilence

White supremacists are real.

My 3 sisters and I were held captive by a family of them. There was a mother, a father, and three sons, all in law enforcement.

The story I was told is that these supremacists had foster children at one time, but did something to get themselves banned from the system. They were no longer allowed to foster any foster children.

But it was the 1970s, and what they did was simply wait a period of time, and then go back to the social services department, and request children, pretending they had never fostered them before. The government had lost their records, a common occurrence back then. So they gave them 4 little girls: me and my three sisters.

What followed was six years of torture, child abuse and rape, lawsuits, reporters, judges, and the complete and utter destruction of my childhood, not to mention those of my 3 younger sisters. I was 8. They were. 7 , 5 and 4.

Being the oldest I was the one who was focused on the most. I was the one they locked in a room, forced to sit on a chair for hours and hours, from which I could not get up, forced to kneel upon sandpaper and beg forgiveness for my sin of not repeating exactly what they told me to, in the precisely correct manner.

The virulent hatred that they tried to teach me did not stick. When the mother spoke of black people, foam would fly out of her mouth and her face would turn bright red. I was never able to get away from her until the sheriff and his men came armed with guns.

When we were liberated from these Monsters, I was 14. My mother fought for six years, all the way up to the Supreme Court level. She won, but the white supremacists dragged her from court appeal to court appeal, until they lost their last appeal, 6 years later. Until the final habeas corpus was issued and armed men were at the door to enforce it.

They failed utterly to make me into a white supremacist. What they succeeded in doing in those years was to cement my horror and disgust at Bigotry and all that it entails. It woke me. It woke me hard at the age of 8. I can never unsee what I saw.

I will never stop opposing the beast that is Racism.

Racism = Mental Rot
#Racism #bigotry #endwhitesilence #Protest #protests #georgefloyd #blacklivesmatter