JUNE 19, 1865

After two weeks without any inspiration I have ideas and feelings that beg to be leveled. For the past three days I’ve been hearing about today’s date, June 19 and Juneteenth. From tribute to enslaved people and their tenacious resilience to a contemporary view of racial injustice as it continues to oppress people of color; I was reminded. In January, 1863 after two years of Civil War Lincoln freed all slaves everywhere. Of course, Slave owners and Southern governments disregarded that insult but in hindsight their disregard was irrelevant. In April of 1865 with General Lee’s surrender, that freedom was recognized. Slave owners relinquished their authority over former slaves and likewise withdrew any and all responsibility to care or provide for newly freed citizens. But that is another story. Gradually the news spread and a class if not a race of people began a journey of reconciliation that is still unfinished. After two & a half months the last bastion of slavery was forced to concede. Union troops arrived in Galveston, TX with official authority to free former slaves. The date has been fixed in African American culture as their Independence Day. Racism and racial prejudice still run deep in White American culture but since 2021, Juneteenth is now a Federal Holiday. The holiday does nothing to reconcile injustice and hypocrisy that still won’t die but it is a rallying point for Black Americans to never forget and never give up. 

Here today in 2024, I’m an 84 year-old white man who has been sheltered in White Privilege all my life. The first time I benefited from being white was by my mother’s prenatal care when I was in the womb and who knows how much or how often since! I don’t get angry easy but the feeling is disturbing; if breaking something would help then I would break things. Racial prejudice and injustice, even when it has been systematically institutionalized, made to seem normal, appear to be fair; it still privileges the one and oppresses the other. Privilege and oppression are opposite sides of the same coin. You can’t manifest one without perpetrating the other. When I hear stories of real people caught in that cultural trap it pisses me off. I can change my address to some far place but I can't change the legacy of white hypocrisy that weighs on my conscience like an incurable disease. I am both ashamed and embarrassed for my predecessor's part in that sin against mankind. What is even worse is the helpless feeling that I cannot change things. For generations blacks had been denied home loans outside their segregated neighborhoods, then they were charged higher interest rates and foreclosed on sooner, for less cause. When society combines racial disparity with poverty the consequence compounds. I’m just an old man chewing on an ugly, unconscionable, hateful bone; racism. For those who would take me to task as a N***er lover or worse, I would say, shame on you you SOB. 

On a much brighter note it is mid June. That is when Sycamore trees in my yard and neighbor's yards start shedding last year’s bark. By now the old bark has turned dark gray, started to peel and turn brittle. The trunk and limbs are growing in diameter and new bark is pressing out relentlessly against that old gray bark. Push comes to shove and something gives. Big slabs of old dry bark pop away from the new and fall to the ground. I mow the yard and come out the next day to see hundreds of bark shards under Sycamores everywhere, long and wide as a roll of paper towels, some curved, some flat, some in weird shapes of limb crotches and forks in the branches. Up and down the tree, new, white bark has enough stretch to accommodate trunk and limb growth and leave some flexible space for the next season’s growth. It’s like a suntan in reverse. The tan goes away and white skin takes its place. 

        I think about climbing trees, I was good at it. My kids were good at it too. My grandkids are just as good. Nothing like ascending limb after limb up a giant Sycamore ladder, up higher that the rooftop, up until limbs are no bigger than you arm and the breeze blows you back and forth like treetops in the wind; duhh! Your mom comes out and calls up, she knows you’re there but can’t see you for the platter size leaves. Mid June; a lot going on.