Juneteenth

As we as a country celebrate Juneteenth, the final end of slavery in the United States 159 years ago, I am always amazed at the fact that over 90% of the black vote continues to go to the Democrats. The overwhelming majority of the harm that has been done to black people in the history of our country was done by Democrats. Democrats were the party of slavery; Democrats fought against reconstruction in the south; Democrats were the party of Jim Crow; Democrats where the party of segregation; Democrats were the party that started the Ku Klux Klan; and many more Democrats voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Bill and the 1965 Voting Rights Act then Republicans.

In modern-day America, the overwhelming majority of black communities are run by Democrats, and those communities are infested with gangs and drugs and crime and failing schools which continually repress the people in those communities. In the post-Civil War south, many former Confederate states often used poll taxes, literacy tests, intimidation and black codes to control people of color from becoming totally free, the modern Democrats use substandard education, welfare dependency, drug addiction and mockery to control the black population and keep them voting Democrat, even though the politicians they vote into office rarely make their communities any better.

In the history of the United States of America, the Democrats have always been on the wrong side of racial issues. There’s absolutely no debate about that. And even now, in the year 2024, when the overwhelming majority of the American people want to have a colorblind society – a society that no longer judges people based on the color of their skin – the Democrats again are drumming up and then exploiting racial animus, pushing DEI programs and intersectionality which forces people to judge each other based on the color of their skin.

Simply because the preferential races now are people of color and not white people does not make the racism any less evil. Racism is racism is racism is racism. There’s not one kind of racism which is bad and another kind of racism which is good or preferred. Racism is wrong. And contrary to what the Democrat and the far left want to claim, black people and people of color can be racist. And it is racist even to make the statement that black people and people color can’t be racist.

If we want everyone to stop judging each other based on the color of their skin, then we must stop judging each other based on the color of their skin. Was it wrong that for the first 87 years in our country’s history, black people in southern states were held in slavery? Of course it was. But it wasn’t wrong because the people held in slavery were black, it was wrong because human beings were held in slavery. Slavery is wrong, regardless of the color of the skin of the people who are the slaves and the skin color of the slaveowner.

So, on Juneteenth, as we celebrate the end of slavery in America, we also must acknowledge that slavery still exists in the world. Over 20 million people are still held as slaves around the world in Africa, in the Middle East, and in Asia. We continually bring up the slavery that ended 159 years ago in America, but we rarely bring up the slavery that is currently going on today. We are told that we must remember the slavery that existed in this country so we can make sure that that it never happens again, but we are not learning that lesson, if we fail to shine light on the blight of slavery that still persists around the world today. We can’t say that slavery in America that ended 159 years ago was one of the evilest things that has ever occurred and then refused to acknowledge or do anything to stop the slavery that still exists.

Because of the unwillingness of the creators of the Juneteenth holiday to use our dark history of slavery as the impetus to start a movement to eradicate slavery around the world today, one can only conclude that Juneteenth was created as a way to continue to stoke the racial animus in our country so that the black vote continues to go to the Democrats so they continue to control the black population in America with their failed policies. So as black people in America wake up on Juneteenth in Democrat run communities which lead the country in crime and gangs and drugs and failing schools, if they want to free themselves from the legacy of slavery in America, they should take a chance and vote for Republicans who will do the most liberating thing for them – treat them like human beings and not a skin color.

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Mr. Garrett is a graduate of Princeton University, and a former NFL player, coach, and executive. He has been a contributor to the website Real Clear Politics. He has recently published his first novel, No Wind.