Happy Juneteenth

Juneteenth is a celebration of the day slavery ended in the United States, June 19th, 1865. It marks the day when slaves in Texas were finally freed after the Emancipation Proclamation. The history and impact of slavery are important to understand, and Juneteenth is a reminder of the struggles our ancestors went through. It's a day to reflect on the progress we've made and the work that still needs to be done for equality. The celebration has grown over the years, and it's important to continue educating ourselves and future generations about the significance of Juneteenth. Grand Razz, Willie Whittle, It Shall Be Dope, this is the podcast, let's get into it. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. This was a quote for Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States of America. Part of the Proclamation, the Emancipation Proclamation, widespread known as the 13th Amendment, that was enacted in 1863 to push for the abolishment of slavery. The actual ending of slavery was a stand that was taken outside of Galveston, Texas in June 19th, 1865, where there were some slave masters still in Texas who did not want to let go of the ways of how they produced their tobacco and their cotton and whatnot. And they were forced by the army, the Confederate army at the time, to oblige by the Emancipation Proclamation. That was the last day of slavery, June 19th, 1865. On this day, June 19th, we celebrate Juneteenth because it was the day of freedom from slavery, the actual day of freedom from slavery. It's a huge deal. And I know that I just had a spirited conversation of companies are widespread recognizing it. There are now celebrations and people truly understanding what it was like for, well, not what it was like for slavery, but understanding the impact of slavery, the things that we went through, understanding that there are different dates for different cultures that mean something. Our Independence Day is not the same as your Independence Day, right? However, that Independence Day over a widespread vision did impact us, right? It's just not seen the same. So our Juneteenth is the day of freedom from slavery. There were multiple generations of people during the 400 years of slavery. And it hurts when you have, and I'm not here to just beat down on people, so don't get me wrong, but it hurts to be able to go back in the history to understand that there was a timeline where we really wanted to be us, but we had a balance of something that was forced upon us that put us in a cultural conundrum, right? There's nothing wrong with our culture by any means. We were able to build, to have music, to become smarter generationally, engineering, and things like that that made our minds pop. Our minds see different things now because of some of the hardships, struggles, and unfortunate things that had to happen in history. And no one appreciates it. No one appreciates slavery. No one appreciates any tyranny against their people at all. But when we talk about the advances from then to now, there was a person that I was talking to in a couple of years ago, they didn't even know what Juneteenth was. So gift and the curse becomes, now you know, and now you have a little more education on how our culture sees things, right? How our culture sees things, right? The curse is there are many people who still don't, and they still may feel like whatever, it's not that big of a deal. They'll bask in the day off because it's a national holiday, but it doesn't pertain to them. It pertains to everybody. So it was our freedom day. It was our day to say slavery is over. It was designed also to be a day of mental change for people who were in industries of slavery, slave masters, people who were different and didn't see Black people as full men, full women. I mean, three-fifths of a man was the statement of what we equated out to be inequality. And three-fifths of a man is not, it's ridiculous. It's a ridiculous statement. It was one of the statements that I learned younger that bothered me to no end because we push and we strive. And I think one of the biggest things to equate it to now is we take a lot of pride in who we are. We go to work, we work extremely hard. And I'm not saying we outwork others, but there's a different psyche behind how we work and what we do, right? So then it's like, if I'm working because I understand what it means and what it looks like to have to fight, to really fight out of the mud and get it. And especially if you understand the history of our ancestors and what they had to go through your bloodline. I mean, honestly, it's not like my last name is African, right? So when I look at my bloodline, my last name is Whittle. Whittle is literally a French name. So my bloodline runs through some French slave master. And that's where we ended up. My family bloodline is from Alabama. Well, okay. Like that's pretty Southern. And I remember visiting my family in Alabama and Mobile, man, many years ago. And we drove through cotton fields. Yep. That's still there. Right? So it's not like the history isn't prevalent and it's not in front of us, right? But we have to understand it. And then it gives us this extra push, this extra different perspective that says we have to be a little more, we have to be greater than what we thought we had to be. We can't just coast in. We got to push, push. I love the Big Sean song where he said, we had the extra, extra try, right? And he wasn't wrong. We did. And all of the people who got us here had the extra, extra try. History is a crazy piece. It's a crazy piece. Like slavery when, you know, I've been to Ghana, West Africa. Let me go here. I went to Ghana, West Africa, 2001, right after I graduated, I was in a manhood training program that was African based. And I was blessed by a series of events. I was blessed to take a trip to Africa. I was selected to go on a trip to Africa. And that's huge. I mean, good God, that's huge. Like, this is crazy huge. So we went to Ghana, West Africa. And as soon as I stepped on the ground, I felt the energy. It's different. I felt it coursing through my veins. I felt it, you know, all through me. And I'm like, that's it. That's the energy of the motherland, right? And as we continued our journey and we, we, eyes open, I mean, it was, the experience was amazing. But one of the important pieces was like, we went to what was called the El Amina, El Amina Castle, which was a slave port. And you go in this, this castle, and it's an actual like castle dungeon space where they had the shackles on the walls, where you can see where they held slaves until the next boat came. You could see the scratches on the, on the rocks. You can see the stained rocks with, you know, with blood and, and just the fact that these people were in here fighting for their lives. They didn't know, they didn't know what was happening. They were being taken from their land, from their place of, from their homes, from their home, and drug into some brand new place. And you felt that. I mean, I put my hand on the wall and I felt that energy. And to get to a place like today where people are celebrating the end of slavery, that's a dynamic change in a lot of things. But Jesus, like the stuff that people have to go through has to be recognized and it has to be understood or else we're getting nowhere. We're getting nowhere. And then on top of that, like, by no means is my struggles the same as their struggles, right? It's definitely a first world, third world discrepancy there where, you know, I now live a better life because they fought through and had to endure for so many years. And then there were things put in place that allowed me to be, you know, able to be where I am, right? There's, you know, whatever you want to call it between affirmative action, which is, you know, DEI now, diversity, equity, and inclusion for many companies, allowing the safe space for us to be who we are. But even in that same safe space, there's still a vision. There's still a, okay, yeah, you go there because that's your safe point. But at some point in time, you know, when do we all really become equal or viewed as equal? And until then, there's going to be always something that pushes somebody left or right. It's always going to be something that makes a difference. And maybe not in a positive way, but it, you know, it's different. It's different. We got to teach our kids something else. You know, I want my daughter and my kids to go to school and be able to look at the person that they're with. And they're not, they're being taught to love. And the other person may be taught to, you know, not, not love, but they might be taught to say, okay, well, we're the best, right? Okay, well, that's cool. That's cool. I teach her that she's fantastic every day. But every, we can't control what we teach each other's kids, right? We can only send them to school and let them go be who they're going to be. But we can fortify with what we know in our kids so they can see a little bit different every day. The problem is, like, most people say like, oh, well, we have this now and you have a day off for it and you get to go celebrate. Are we good? And no, we're not good. Like, we're not. We can't forget why we're here. And then we have to continue to push forward with the understanding of why this causes so many people to be who they are. Why it causes so many people to push. I'm lucky enough to have a platform now of listeners that actually can understand like, all right, this is, this is where Willie's coming from. This is where he's at in life. And I super appreciate you guys. Like, sometimes I get on here and I ramble, but it's because it's in my heart. It's in my heart. But I'm blessed to be here and blessed to be able to celebrate a Juneteenth. I do remember going down to Marcus Garvey celebrations in Cincinnati and we went down to the park and we would celebrate Juneteenth and it'd be a summer barbecue. It'd probably be about 60 people. And then it became a little bit bigger. We started bigger. We started going to Eden park and it was a little bit bigger. And the African community in Cincinnati was putting on Juneteenth celebrations and it was great. It was like, okay, people were like, well, what's going on here? Why is everybody in black, black, red, and green? You know? And it's like, Hey, Juneteenth. And we're spread. We were spreading the word and we were letting people know, like, this is what's up. This is where it's at. Right. But I heard a statement from, and I'm going to kind of switch gears a little bit from Stiles yesterday. I was listening to one of Stiles' Instagram reels. Stiles P, the rapper Stiles P from The Lox. One of the GOATs for me, like top three, easy. And he was in a room talking about giving back to the community, right? He was in the white house. He had went to a speaking forum in the white house. And he said, some of the issues that we don't understand is that you got this amount of money to do something with, right? And we missed, you missed the investment piece that actually will benefit. You didn't put any community centers in any of the inner city areas. You, you took the money and you started to, you know, rebuild some of the places that generate more money. So in the same sense, you didn't stop the crime. You didn't do anything with the youth. You kind of made it more of a target. This is not his words. This is me paraphrasing his words. You would make it more of a target to amplify the businesses in the area, but you didn't stop but you didn't stop like the black violence or the black crime where people will actually try to like, try to succeed because you bumped up the demographic where now it's expensive to live. And these people who are still struggling to live in the first place, now it's more expensive for them and they'll struggle. They'll try to find a way, right? You didn't, you didn't focus on that. You didn't take the trouble out of the situation or you didn't assess something that would bring the trouble down was his, was his, you know, essential point. And then he said, and then here this, we're in a room trying to change the community, but there are no white faces in the room. And when he said that, I was like, that is a powerful statement because we're talking about trying to change our communities. And we know that the white people have the area where they gentrify, like Cincinnati just went through over the last 15 or so years, a huge gentrification. Like we, we over the Rhine was over the Rhine, like OTR was like, don't go there. And now it's like, oh no, it's the tourist spot. Like you can hang out in OTR and it's not like the same. It's not the same, which is, you know, good news, bad news. Cause you, you, you updated your city, but what did you do with the people who weren't benefiting from the city? You obviously pushed them out. You obviously made them go elsewhere. They're pushing poverty already. And then you force them with a, you know, a decision that's, you know, not cool by any means, but here we are. And then, so he said, there's no white faces in the room. The people who can actually impact, where are the business owners? Where are the people who are in the communities benefiting from, from these dollars? But when we want to make an impactful move for the community, they're not here because they're not invited. They don't care. Like they're invited. Everybody's invited. It's a public forum. So if it turns into like a community town hall where on the agenda is black community centers, black people's housing and things like that, well guess who's going to show up? The black people. And guess who's going to complain? The black people. And guess who's going to hear them? The black people. Not the black people who are in a position to do anything because we're advocating for all of the black people who's already in the room. So now it just turns into an event session that says, thank you for giving me more ammunition to go actually find the people who I really need to get in the room to make a change. And that's the purpose, right? The purpose becomes if you're going, if we're going to make a change and you know, white people recognize Juneteenth and people of color recognize Juneteenth and it's a national holiday. In order for it to work out, the key contributors need to understand their piece and those are the mentalities that need to be changed in order for us to make a difference. We will become key contributors and we will make a difference. We will. But at the end of the day, if you are a key contributor and you don't understand your piece of inclusion, you don't understand your piece and diversity and definitely equity, equality, I'm sorry, equality. If you don't understand your piece in that, then you are still on the side of part of the problem and that's the mentality that we need to change. I advocate for the right thing to do. I'm not here to be like, hey, I'm an activist and I stand on this, but I am an activist and I do stand on that. Like it's kind of funny in the sense of like, I have to stand up for my, for my family. I have to stand up for the people who are not stood up for, but activism is a lot different than what it used to be. We have to really understand who we are as people. Then we have to understand that there's a race and really until we get to that point, because we're still arguing with the races and, and things like that. And if you look different, that's an old, that's such an old argument. It's such an old argument. It's we, we give it a lot of energy and a lot of power. When at the end of the day, if we actually just say like, we love each other and we can move forward, we can actually vibe on a different level. And I know I made it sound really like simple because it could be, if we really get past the skin color, the where we're from, the all of that. And then we actually start making some real change. Then that's when we'll start following our mission, our true mission to peace with love. So happy Juneteenth. This is Willie Whittle. And no matter what you do, please do it with love in your heart. And then you'll see that it shall be dope. Thank you.