Juneteenth?

https://www.inclusiongeeks.com/articles/understanding-the-difference-between-affirmative-action-eeo-and-dei/

Juneteenth? What the heck is that? June 19^th, that’s what it is. So why isn’t it called June 19^th?

Juneteenth, officially Juneteenth National Independence Day, is a federal holiday in the United States. It is celebrated annually on June 19 to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States. The holiday's name, first used in the 1890s, is a combination of the words June and nineteenth, referring to June 19, 1865, the day when Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas at the end of the American Civil War.

That’s from the Wikipedia page. Not much of an explanation, I’ll grant you. Somewhere along the line, June 19^th got shortened to Juneteenth, as if June 17^th or 14^th weren’t just as qualified for that abbreviation.

Do I object to Juneteenth? You bet I do! But not for racial reasons. Just because it’s bad English. It’s not a word. It makes no doggone sense. To me, the people who make it a point to think of Juneteenth as a big deal, I’m sorry, you sound like doofuses. Is that a word? What is the plural of doofus, anyway? Doofi?

For the record, I have no objection to inclusion whatsoever. I think it’s great. I think everybody should be treated equally. And, yes, I’ll admit that, in many instances, they aren’t. We aren’t. African-Americans, Irish-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Native-Americans, Polish-Americans, and all other hyphen-Americans have something in common: We’re Americans. Perhaps that should be listed first, such as American-Africans? Nah, doesn’t sound right. If we said it like that, we’d all sound like doofi.

It seems to me, as a lay-observer—lay-observer-American?—that Juneteenth is just the latest in what will surely be a long line of federal holidays expressing the nation’s intention to prove it’s not racist. In the last generation, that was done with Martin Luther King Day. I guess the luster has faded on that, so we need another one; hence, Juneteenth. Now we have one in the summer, and one in the winter. We can continue like this for another 363 generations before we exhaust the calendar.

Somebody pointed out to me once that it’s a shame that all this anti-racist gesturing seems to be focused on Black people, or, more appropriately, brown people. We now have two specifically African-American holidays, but how about one for Latinos? Or Asians? Why not celebrate the end of WW2 internment camps on behalf of the Japanese-Americans?

Now that I think about it, that would actually make sense. When was the last Japanese internment camp closed after WW2?

In my lifetime, we’ve had EEO: Equal Employment Opportunity. Then came Affirmative Action, which never got reduced to initials, probably to sidestep any copyright infringement lawsuits by Alcoholics Anonymous. Then we got DEI: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

All of which I’m for, by the way. I’m all for diversity, and equity, and inclusion. I believe affirmative action, which allows minorities to be considered for positions for which they might not be otherwise qualified, is a good thing. I think that everybody should have the opportunity to be employed as an equal.

It reminds me of when I lived in Sacramento, California, for a while. I’m a country boy from rural New Hampshire. I don’t think I ever had a conversation with a Black person before I joined the US Navy. I thought it was cool; exotic, even. I was crossing cultures and learning a lot. I found myself being treated with as much respect as I gave others, in most instances.

When I arrived in Sacramento, I needed to find an apartment, and it had to be affordable. As I made friends, I would often find myself flopping down on their couches. One night, I was at an open mic at the Fox and Geese, a sort of Irish pub that is still there. I got up, played my three songs, and sat down.

One of the acts that followed me was a small, black man. He went up, opened an electric piano, screwed on the legs, and proceeded to amaze everybody. He played all original material, and played it well! Had a beautiful voice, reminiscent of Lou Rawls. To have someone of his talent show up at a humble open mic on a back street in Sacramento was stunning.

What was more stunning was what happened next. He broke the electric piano back down and came to my table. “Hi,” he said, “I’m Jerry Folmar. Everybody calls me Jerry Keys.” You could’ve knocked me over with a feather.

He liked what I was doing. He had just left a big club band in the Bay Area known as the East Bay Connection and Soul Food Crew. Wanted to do something different. “I like you, kid,” he says. “You sound country.”

I laughed, wondering what country he might be referring to.

Anyway, he invited me over to his place in a couple of days for a jam session. It turns out he was the superintendent at an apartment building. I arrived at his apartment and found that we were being joined by a tall, handsome Black man about my age, whose name I can’t recall. He could really sing, though.

Jerry would start playing one of his songs, none of which I’d ever heard. The other guy shared vocal duties with Jerry, and I stumbled along behind. I was mainly trying to figure out what key they were playing in and how the chord progression went. The other guy would grimace at Jerry as if to say, “Are you serious?” Jerry would smile, nod at me, and keep playing.

At the risk of tooting my own horn, I managed to get something together for everything we played. After a couple of hours of this, Jerry offered me the guitar spot in the band he was putting together. How could I possibly refuse? By then, even the singer was indicating that he was okay with it.

“Where do you live?” Jerry asked.

“Um, well …”

“No problem. We’ve got an empty apartment here.” The rent was manageable, so he gave me a ride to where I was staying, grabbed my belongings, and I had a place. Over the next few days, he moved all his equipment into what was now my apartment, a small ground-floor studio, and it became the band’s rehearsal space, much to his girlfriend’s delight.

As time went on, I learned that I now lived in a relatively rough Black neighborhood. It was on 18^th Street, near the intersection with J Street, as I recall, in case you ever want to check it out. Once word got around that I was a friend of Jerry’s, I was cool. I discovered that there was precisely one other white man in the building. In the year or so I lived there, I never met him.
As time went on, I got up the nerve to ask Jerry, “Did you take me on just because I’m white?” Turns out, not so much that I was white, but that I played white. I brought a different flavor to the music that made us stand out. So, I guess I was a DEI hire.

That’s not why I don’t mind DEI/EEO/Affirmative Action. My parents instilled in me early on that everybody is equal, or should be. I was taught that it’s a person’s character, not their background, that determines their value. I suppose, if you considered every word I ever spoke and every action I ever took, you could “prove that I’m a racist.”

If that’s where you get your thrills, have at it. I know this much: I don’t want to be a racist, and when I find glimmers of it in my own character, I take corrective steps. I’m not obsessed with it, but I would hate for anyone to think I hate them, for any reason. If Jesus loves you, how dare I not?

The only time it bothers me is when it’s used to hire someone who is clearly incompetent. Claudine Gay springs to mind, the former President of Harvard University. First Black president, and second woman. Forced to resign because of accusations of plagiarism, along with some other things, I guess. I’ve heard numerous accounts of actions on her part that suggest she wasn’t qualified for the job.

Or how about Kamala Harris? I recall Joe Biden stating publicly that he intended to select a Black woman as his running mate. Personally, I don’t have a problem with that. I’d be willing to accept that there are, no kidding, thousands of people in the country who could adequately perform the duties of President of the United States, which should be what you want in a VP. A significant number of those are bound to be Black women. I wouldn’t have to agree with their policies to accept that they’re qualified for the job. But Kamala Harris? Seriously? Halle Berry wasn’t available?

What? She’s smart. I’ve seen interviews. Seriously great actress, too.

One problem, of course, with DEI is … it’s racist. It may not be the correct thing to say, but it is racist! It’s choosing someone based on their race, and sometimes, their sex.

The reason I’m cool with it is that there are countless examples in history of personnel choices being made for the exact same reason. Examples where the only applicants seriously considered were white males. As a white male, maybe I could object to being removed from consideration for my race and sex, but I’ll live. What would suck would be getting passed over for somebody who was totally unqualified.

Besides, how long is long enough? I think that’s the argument that was already being made decades ago. When can we be colorblind? How long do we have to deliberately pass by the qualified white guys and just choose someone on their merits alone, regardless of their race or sex? How many times do we deny the white man the job, the spot in the following college class, the promotion, just because they don’t fit in the correct box?

When are we allowed to stop being racist?

I guess only when racism stops. Which may be, sadly, never. In the meantime, every unqualified DEI hire will continue to tarnish the reputation of DEI. For every Claudine Gay, there may be a dozen highly qualified Black women who would do a great job as President of Harvard. For every Kamala Harris, a dozen highly qualified Black women who could be outstanding Presidents of the United States.

My main hope is that these unfortunate DEI choices don’t prevent good ones from happening.