#Juneteenth Done Right in Detroit! Shout out to the Black Business Chamber of Detroit

Projection of Black People from the Mainstream vs. Reality

I need to share this experience because the cyber demons work hard to narrate Black people in negative ways on both sides of the political think tanks. Juneteenth has been controversial since being adopted as a Federal holiday recently. Mixed sentiments about the holiday from different groups, including Blacks have inspired many to mock or ridicule the holiday. The observation for me will always be a day for Texas Blacks to observe should they choose. Technically, June 19th should not be considered an emancipation day because there were still slaves in America up until December of 1865. It is almost a disrespect to the legacies of slaves who were in the northern states still waiting their turn to be free months after the slaves in Texas were declared free. I never heard of Juneteenth until about 10 years ago. Nobody that I knew in Metro Detroit celebrated Juneteenth, and this is true for most Blacks who were not from Texas or a member of a Black fraternity or sorority. A few Black churches have observed the day from what I hear, but that has been rare up until now. The observations on its premise don’t make sense for most Blacks, and so it truly is like MLK Day (a paid day off) for many. Some people host celebrations but in their roots, most celebrations are organized to remind Black people of where they came from and inflame their hearts with the injustices of their people in this so-called free land in America. The Federal government finds a way to exploit anything Black founded for excellence to exploit ongoing rhetoric that leads to the disenfranchisement or discrimination against Black people. The Republican party has been notorious for the last 8 years or so for elevating Black-looking people to highlight Black people with a broad stroke aiding in the biased narration of the group. For as long as I have known of Juneteenth it has never been a “Made-up and ghetto” celebration as Candace Owens tweeted last year and the Republican psyOp Valentina Gomez repeated for clicks on X this week. Since the adoption, I have seen more graceful than disgraceful Juneteenth celebrations. The one thing people should be smart enough to know is that people are different by location, even if they are from the same group. Black culture is not the same across America, even though the passionately ignorant will convince those on their bandwagon of ignorance that they are.

Although I do not celebrate, I attended a Juneteenth observation in downtown Detroit yesterday. The Detroit Black Chamber hosted its annual ‘Black CEO Roundtable Juneteenth Luncheon’. Black businesses from various disciplines from finance to manufacturing gathered at the UBS community space to discuss the state of Black-owned businesses and strategies to help them thrive in a changing world and economy. I love being around intelligent and driven people of all colors, but it always hits differently in my soul when I am around like-minded Black people. We are the image that the mainstream doesn’t want people to see partly because it is a threat to the projections that many want to narrate about Black people in general. They want to project Black people showing out, being uncivilized and low-intelligent. I suppose such projections are designed to manipulate Black minds while empowering others who are not Black and who truly manifest such deficiencies. Projections of Blacks not meeting the mainstream projections and who operate with control and grace are rare because that is not what the mainstream wants people to believe of Blacks.

I am on a mission to counter the narratives of the Black image in America so that people can negotiate within their reasoning if every projection of Black people is fair to all and if they should sensibly reject any image as universal to an entire group. I keep thinking, somewhere in the world, there is a Chinese or Japanese person who hates rice.

Have a wonderful week. Blogging is a hobby, but I am working hard to beat these narratives and grow my business in this hypersocial and political climate. I am always open to networking with new people to explore collaborations so reach out to me if you would like to schedule an introduction call so that we can learn more about each other. angie.d.card@gmail.com (NO SPAM PLEASE).

Thanks for reading. Reading is good and knowledge is empowerment!

Cheers!