Buddhism is about liberation from struggling and sympathetic pleasure for all, so it makes good sense that Buddhists of all backgrounds would assist a vacation celebrating freedom from bondage and the enjoyment that comes with being free. For hundreds of years, starting in 1865, two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, African-Individuals have yearly celebrated freedom from chattel slavery.
Let’s have fun and revel in freedom as one!
In 2021, 158 years after the top of slavery, and after years of intense white supremacist rhetoric and nationalist insurance policies, in addition to strategic and efficient racial reckoning, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Home of Representatives handed a invoice making June 19th as Juneteenth Nationwide Independence Day. The swift passage of this invoice, in comparison with the 32 years of fierce opposition to the passage of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Vacation in 1986, is proof of how some issues have modified within the U.S. because it pertains to race issues, however some Buddhists who should not Black could surprise why they need to have fun a vacation concerning the finish of slavery for Black individuals. Whereas Juneteenth Nationwide Independence Day is now a actuality, there may be nonetheless voter suppression, mass incarceration, and assaults towards Essential Race Idea in public training and elsewhere.
The aim of Juneteenth Nationwide Independence Day amplifies and expands the liberatory arch from the Black expertise all through the nation in order that all of us can take a second collectively to mirror on the liberty from struggling and the fun of being free, the tasks that come from being free, and the methods we defend one another from future enslavement, together with mass incarceration. Let’s have fun and revel in freedom as one!