Juneteenth 365

It is not enough–not then, not now– to have freedom conferred. 

It is in the act of knowing of and living into freedom, and the attributes and responsibilities inherent in that freedom, that matters most. 

It is important to note that, while Juneteenth is designated as a federal holiday, Emancipation Day is not. 

Emancipation Day commemorates freedom from; Juneteenth celebrates freedom to.

The denial of the humanity of those burdened by chattel slavery was a cornerstone of the justification of the act of slaveholding, Its remnants and residue endure today. 

Slaves were seen as less than human; sometimes were even considered not to have souls; and it is in exactly this pervasive and insidious way that ADoS are covertly still considered. 

Chattel, whether de jure or de facto,  denotes property; property has no feelings to consider and cannot make claims as to its worthiness of consideration. Chattel has no interior life or choices as regards to that life. Chattel cannot live out moral imperatives, they also cannot claim it from others

While it is true that Emancipation and Juneteenth broke the bonds of slavery, that was and is not enough for true freedom. 

What was missing was indeed humanity–for it is thought that only humans are moral animals–that only humans can make choices from the stance of will and can make subsequent discernments. 

This is what makes humans unique–unlike the perhaps mythical angels and demons, who are almost pre-programmed into their inherent and unalterable natures, humans have choices. Angels cannot be bad, so their goodness comes with an asterisk. The same with demons. When one is compelled to evil, with no power or choice, is it actually evil?

The ending of slavery ended(ish) an era of subhuman status. But, like with angels and demons, our humanity comes with footnotes. 

This is where we consider just what Emancipation and Juneteenth has and has not accomplished for descendants of those enslaved. 

This is also where we pause and consider just exactly why those asterisks and footnotes exist, and to whose benefit.

This is a good place to begin to consider the concept of ethical imagination.

Some might well wonder what it is that I mean when I say that ethical imagination, while indeed a crucial ingredient of a comprehensive integral ethic, is an ingredient that requires other ingredients–some of which are awareness, language, and a certain sort of vision, however yet to be articulated. 

This is a very big deal. 

A story.

In hindsight, I knew what I wanted to do and what I wanted to explore and what I wanted to be the focus of my life from a fairly early age. The stirrings came in latency and early adolescence; I had a vague idea that I wanted to ‘help people’, and I was (and still am) very interested as to why people did the things they did and how they came to those discernments, and, as well, I have always been interested in the tension, the dissonance between who people are and who they want to be and who they actually are and how they actually live. 

In short, a life immersed in ethics, and her cousins, theology and psychology. 

But I did not have the words–*nor, crucially, the example* to even consider shaping this amorphous blob into something I could actually consider. In short, one cannot become what one cannot articulate (however nebulously), and, as important, what one did not have examples with which/whom to identify or to counteridentify. 

This is one of the most insidious legacies of entrenched societal white supremacy, this contraction, moral/existential or otherwise of potential and what one is ‘allowed’ to do or think. Often the (disingenuous) excuse has been, and is, that black, and to a lesser extent, brown people are not capable of doing or thinking at what one could call an elevated level, which justifies the contraction.

Acknowledging and affirming the full and unfettered humanity of descendants of those enslaved, is something what white America, as a group, has been loath to do. 

Unaltered freedom, then can be seen as much like an ingredient in a recipe, where one pours out all but two teaspoons, which are held in reserve.

 To the naked eye, it looks like full measure. 

But those crucial two teaspoons are what have often made for the subjugation and oppression of the last 157 years. It is what has made it difficult for America to fully see American descendents of slaves as deserving of full citizenship. 

It is what has made for default assumption of, at best, a certain amorality, and worst, a kind of mindless malevolence that must be constrained and contained. It has justified, from Jim Crow onward to the present day, downgrading and outright denial of the basic rights of humanity and full participation in the public square. 

However, just because something is minimized or denied by one oppressive cohort, does not at all mean that the subjugated cohort does not have the attributes or virtues. As well the assertion of these attributes and virtues do not hinge on how dominant culture narrowly defines. 

It is in this that I proclaim the promise of Juneteenth. This self definition of the moral, that, with discernment and savvy, both challenges and embraces conventional Western thought as to what morality and agency are, and, crucially, amends, transcends, and integrates–and even discards–what only one cohort had previously defined, can make for a new way of both thinking and living out what, using only traditional thought, could not otherwise be achieved. 

It is with these eyes and anticipation that we at Lace on Race invite you into full measure of Juneteenth. 

We, together, will face and confront the following: 

*The Privilege Of The Full Humanity Of Interior Lives: Continuing Challenges For All Cohorts

* Confronting/Subverting Oppressive Rules/Norms in Service To Greater Ethical/Moral Imperatives: The Challenge To Change Work 

* White Resistance To The Full Promise of Juneteenth

We will do this as we also take a deep dive into contractual ethics and consider how both moral/ethical imagination and agency irrefutably align with ethics and how we relate to and act toward and with each other, and how our choices regarding each of these ethics drive and determine our convictions. 

Looking forward!

Keep walking.