Yesterday was Juneteenth, a National Holiday since 2021 that marks the official end of slavery in Texas; that pronouncement, in Galveston, came two and a half years after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Many Americans surely celebrated the new holiday, especially African Americans, while most only noticed that the bank, post office and stock exchange were closed.
Today, we refocus on the racism that has always defined our country. Indeed, growing up in the 1950s and 60s in a white, Catholic, Midwestern culture, I learned about black inferiority long before I completed grade school. Slavery may have officially ended but racism is alive and well in America, at all levels of our society. Feeding on that social undertone, Trump and his MAGA followers demand that America return to its "white, Christian roots."
Furthermore, a number of Red States have outlawed the teaching of black history in public schools and have banned many books by black authors (or by those who sympathize with civil rights). They hope to bring back the fifties, when God and white men ruled America. Vote Democratic!
