Awakening from Racially Divisive Propaganda: Juneteenth vs. Founding Truths

In numerous aspects, history is far more nuanced than what is presented to us through daily bombardment of false propaganda and rhetoric. This post focuses on how that truth is revealed with regard to the “holiday” that seeks to make a historic landmark of June 19, 1865.

Going back to even before Independence Day, racism against Black people was certainly quite prevalent. If we look to the results of the rhetoric that we have daily imposed upon us in the present, we now see a significant portion of Blacks who are racist against White people.

It is never perfect, is it?

These problems occur when we accept narratives that paint in such broad strokes, and the acceptance of these narratives results in a self-imposed ignorance.

At the time of our founding, Blacks were free in many areas of the country, including in the South. Some Blacks even owned slaves. In some cases, those slaves were White.

Too many people seem to operate on the belief that, at the time of our founding, all Whites were racist slave owners, and all Blacks lived in chains. Do these people actually believe that slavery would have been abolished, not only without White people, but without White people leading the effort?

The truth is that foundation for the remedy of any and every societal ill is rooted in the founding principles of our founders: God as source of intrinsic value and unalienable rights that supersede government, whose sole purpose is to secure them.

No racial limits except those imposed by man.

“We the people… are one people… with one God.”

~John Jay

There is no racial limitation in these ideals - except what people choose to impose upon them.

In the early days of our founding, it is true - many people of all races imposed racial limitations upon these ideals that negatively affected Blacks. Coming to the present, we now have many people of all races who are imposing racial limitations upon these ideals that negatively affect White people, especially White Christians.

Ironically, it was White Christians who laid the foundation for the ultimate abolition of slavery, and who also led the effort to forever abolish slavery.

This historical fact is rarely mentioned - if not outright suppressed - by those seeking to advance the Black victimization narrative surrounding the celebration of 6/19/1865.

The reality is that there is no lasting impact of the Emancipation Proclamation. It was a wartime political ploy to destabilize the Confederacy with limited value toward abolishing slavery. If it were a true instrument of liberty, it would have freed all slaves. It didn’t. It applied only to Confederate states.

Independence Day exists of its own accord, whether June 19 ever happens or not. The same cannot be said of June 19 without Independence Day.

Many proponents of June 19 celebrations urge that we honor this event in history because “not everybody was free” in July of 1776. What they miss is that the foundation “for everybody to be free” had been put in place.

The Preamble to the US Constitution contains the phrase, “in order to form a more perfect union.” The reason for that specific wording is because the founding fathers recognized that any instrument devised by man - whether societal or governmental- it will never be perfect.

Today, we have sex trafficking and the slaughter of babies in the womb—problems arguably worse than slavery.

If our judgment of a nation requires freedom from all evil or sin at the time of its establishment, that condition will never be satisfied. A single person could live by themselves on an island, declare their own nation state with a population of one, and they would still never achieve that condition.

We must each choose to reject racially divisive propaganda. Return to our founders’ God-given principles of unity and liberty for all.