Oh, happy happy joy joy, happy happy joy! Happy happy joy joy, happy happy joy! (I believe I am pirating this exclamation of happiness from Ren & Stimpy, a cartoon show from the 90s?)
Or
Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people!! (KJV Luke 2:10-11)
As of about five minutes ago, I am less ashamed to be a human being!
The United States Senate has unanimously approved making Juneteenth a national holiday, formally celebrating the end of chattel slavery in our nation.
Yes, there are details to be ironed out, and the House of Representatives must pass the legislation, too.
But “I pity the fool” who doesn’t see fit to honor that wonderful day when people in Texas got wind of the end of the Civil War and the end of legal human bondage in a nation that so prides itself on freedom of the individual!
I’ve been harshly critical of my own U.S. Representative in Congress for his unbending ears when anyone disagrees with his set-in-stone ideas. But I cannot fathom even one, infinitesimal little reason by which he could disapprove of marking this enormously significant milestone in U.S. history.
It is probably too much to hope that Juneteenth will join the list of paid legal holidays such as Independence Day, July 4th.
But to have a date marking the end of a brutal, inhuman practice such as slavery is a BIG F’ing DEAL in my book.
Maybe there is hope for us all as the single race on the planet after all.
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