Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Juneteenth has always been celebrated where I live, with a parade and festival and barbeque. I'm glad it's going to be a holiday, but in a way it's strange, because it represents not the date slavery was abolished, but the day many years later that Texas acknowledged slavery had been abolished long before. So it's ugly, what Texas did, and shameful. But that's our history. We state that something is legal, but the illegal goes on unabated, because we put no teeth into the law. Black people didn't have freedom after emancipation, not really, and they were not allowed to act on that freedom, because no one protected and supported them in their rights. The truth was written out of the history books, and people of color were not in them. I felt something similar when, after going through college and graduate school, you'd think there were no women of note, no great women writers, and women did not make history. I promised myself I would read only women authors, and about women's biographies, and I'm still catching up. Then I committed myself to reading the history and writing of Black people, Indiginous people, Asian people, Hispanic people and immigrants in this country. Not much of that had ever been taught to me. Marie Curie and Harriet Tubman are not enough. When I read James Baldwin, in my twenties, my world turned on its axis. And living in another country for a couple of years helped me experience what racism and sexism were really like, then return to my own country and see clearly what I'd been missing. THe big picture, hidden in plain sight. I've been trying to play catch up ever since. A holiday is not nearly enough. We need transparency and truth. I believe we are beginning to find it, lead by the people we've "othered". They are sick of trying to make us listen, and rightly so. Now they are taking action themselves, not waiting for us to do the right thing.