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Community Playthings

June 19, 2024

Juneteenth

I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions.
– Zora Neale Hurston 1891-1960, American anthropologist

Thanks to Exchange Editor-in-Chief Binta Dixon for offering these reflections on Juneteenth.

Freedom requires that we break away from comfortable illusions and stand together in the face of all that opposes it.

Zora Neale Hurston taught me about freedom through her relentless documentation and love of Black southern culture. She did not receive the flowers of recognition her work deserved in her lifetime. Her writing in and ethnographic research on African American English dialects was considered offensive and “low class” by some of her contemporaries such as Langston Hughes.

Respectability politics can become another box Black people in America must break out of to live and create in the spirit of liberation our ancestors wanted for us. Writers such as Hurston remind me of this with their playful yet powerful statements of cultural pride.

The pursuit of freedom is the relentless commitment to unveiling reality, despite how painful it can be.

The balm we use to soothe the hurt that can come with seeing the truth is creative expression.

Juneteenth is a day of great celebration in my family and many others stretching across the US and into the African Diaspora. We come together to eat together, dance, to tell stories of our ancestors, and to reflect on the love and joy that sustain us.

We teach young children to be bold, to play, to express themselves, to take risks, and to follow their curiosity into learning. What questions will they have about who we are as a society, and what do we want the answers to be?

Juneteenth acknowledges the joy and resilience of formerly enslaved Africans in the Americas as well as the illusions of American equality that we must continue to interrogate.

We can do this with Black children in ways that center the joy and wealth of their cultural heritage. The National Museum of African American History and Culture developed a resource for introducing Juneteenth to young children.

This is a holiday and a history all children should know. We can discuss the what and why of Juneteenth with children in ways that do not gloss over the truth or caretake white fragility, but instead acknowledge the realities and reasons of slavery and the necessity of celebrating freedom in developmentally appropriate ways.

We do this, not to drudge up the past, but to prevent a future where history repeats itself. We do this so that freedom to live and express authentically becomes a reality for every child.

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