Can White People Celebrate Juneteenth?
Juneteenth is on the horizon and now that it has become a day “woke” white folks know about, we’re faced with commercialization by big box stores, I’m looking at you Target. Since it’s socially acceptable and hip to know about Juneteenth, you can bet your bottom dollar white folks are ready to gentrify it.
I’m here to say STOP!!! Juneteenth is not for you. Yes, I know it’s becoming a national holiday, and some folks will be getting the day off from work but this is not the time for white people to find a way to colonize a holiday by whitewashing the real deal.
I do not want to see any of you wearing Juneteenth shirts or attempting the Black Power fist. Please don’t give us faux righteous indignation about Juneteenth *finally* being recognized by this nation. I really don’t want to hear it when we still can’t get the new Voting Rights Act passed.
If you as a white person would like to celebrate Juneteenth, there is literally only one thing you can do (that doesn’t make you look like an asshole. There are lots of things white people can do—but only one they SHOULD do.)- PAY REPARATIONS!!! For white people, Juneteenth should not be a day of celebration, but one of service.
I know everyone thinks reparations should happen on a national level—and that’s true. But you,a white person, do not have to wait for the system to do what it should’ve done FOREVER ago. Nope, here are three very real ways you can provide reparations to Black people on Juneteenth and beyond.
Share your wealth! No seriously, open your bank accounts and start redistributing your wealth. Make an appointment with your estate manager and add a Black person to your will. Create a trust fund for a Black child. Instead of buying more property for yourself, buy a home for a Black family. Don’t even tell the bank these are for Black folks because then they might charge you more. Just do it and then gift the deed or title or however all those fancy things work.
Maybe you’re not a super wealthy white person, so just dropping some big cash on Juneteenth doesn’t work for you. Provide monthly donations to Black content creators with no strings attached. You can give as little as $1 a month in most cases and those $1 donations add up. If you don’t want to use Patreon, you can always just gift them funds via Venmo, Zelle, CashApp, etc. Just make sure you put a recurring reminder in your calendar to do it regularly.
Finally, if you’re a white person with no extra funds at all, no worries: We all have something to offer when it comes to reparations. Watch your “Black friends” kids for free. Write a business plan for them. Manage their social media. Offer to come and clean their home or organize things for them. Give them the gift of your labor in some way.
Above all remember that Juneteenth is about Black people, and what Black people need from white people more than anything else right now are reparations—whether it be a house, a monthly donation, or physical labor. It’s time for white people to pay Black people what you owe us.
P.S. If you’d like to in some way acknowledge the day with Black people you care about try saying “I’m sorry my ancestors were kidnappers, murderers, rapists, and enslavers. We won’t let our children forget the horror we’ve caused and we won’t let this happen again,” but make sure you mean it.
Learn more about raising advocates by taking our course – Raising an Advocate 101
Teach your kids more about Black History through our curriculum here: Black History is American History
