Our workplace held its first Juneteenth celebration a day ago. The celebration was simple, but the event was powerful. Until the event, my experience with West African cuisine was limited to Senegalese peanut soup. The names of the dishes eluded me -- except for the white, steamed rice -- but the food yielded a peppery, flavorful experience I attempted to describe the baobab juice as having a taste that struck me as a hybrid of banana and mango with a little ginger thrown in. Perhaps one of my ancestors had enjoyed a meal such as this before passing over an ocean fouled by the insatiable greed of slave traders. Perhaps this was a taste of home before the holocaust.
After lunch, we watched a Youtube clip explaining the origins of Juneteenth and a second video in which Texas university students shared their viewpoints on Juneteenth. Attendees then discussed their outlook on occasion. Out of the six European-Americans who sat at our table, one knew of Juneteeth's existence. She grasped the importance of the federal holiday after reading Toni Morrison's Beloved. She went on to say that after reading the book, she now understood why her family members made a suicide pact which would be executed if they fell into the hands of the Nazis. I responded that according to books I read, the Nazis did not know how to segregate Jewish citizens from non-Jewish citizens. Only after studying the laws and customs of the United States did the Nazis learn how to implement apartheid against those who fell under their jurisdiction. I pointed out this was the reason why it was important for people to talk and share their stories. If people understood the similarities in their family histories, then perhaps people would develop empathy for other travelers on this plane.
The need to return to work cut short our discussion. Feeling that white nationalism had taken one more hit, that one more brick had been hammered away from its edifice of hate, ignorance, and oppression, I vowed that I would volunteer for the next Juneteenth event at our workplace.
Later I held my private Juneteenth ceremony. I lit a candle I had bought from a hoodoo shop years ago, and I thanked my ancestors for allowing me to have the experience of being human. How that special ancestor survived the Middle Passage baffled me, or how many miles of sorrow the nameless ancestors walked I had no way of counting. I trusted the ancestors knew my intentions when I borrowed from the Beatles (who profited from the creativity and artistry of Black performers), "I am he/ we are all together."
