I am not surprised, nor deterred, that U.S. officials chose not to align with other nations in the U.N. vote. Making Juneteenth a national holiday is the closest our country has gotten to acknowledging the truth about enslavement and its vestiges. While essential, we must move beyond apologies and recognition.
The horrific legacy of slavery, which produced inequities and exclusion, will not be uprooted with resolutions and holidays. Equality did not happen following the passage of the 13th Amendment, Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Movement, or affirmative action. That is why we must continue to fight for liberation and radical repair.
The impacts of America’s history of slavery and racism are many, and so too are possible forms of reparations. Chattel slavery stole people’s families, intellectual creations, land, access to resources, and, for some, spiritual foundations. Many Black communities today still grapple with a lack of housing, adverse health effects stemming from environmental racism, so-called urban renewal that strips their communities of economic opportunities, and the dilution of their power through arbitrary political boundaries. Our generation is charged with closing the gap between admission and repair.
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