All posts tagged "Juneteenth"

MAGA adherents spent Juneteenth on social media protesting the very existence of the federal holiday that celebrates the end of slavery in the United States, while President Donald Trump went about his business like it was any other day.

The conservative Washington Examiner posted to Truth Social, "White House lists no Juneteenth celebration plans for Trump," linking to an article that read, "Despite Juneteenth’s status as a federal holiday, President Trump has a full schedule at the White House on Thursday in sharp contrast with Joseph R. Biden, who gave staffers the day off and didn’t hold public events."

President Biden declared the date, June 19th, a federal holiday in 2021 after a bill unanimously passed the Senate and received "broad bipartisan support" in the House. It commemorates the day at the end of the Civil War in 1865 when enslaved people in Texas were told that slavery had been abolished and they were free....

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who spearheaded Donald Trump's anti-DEI initiatives at the Pentagon, urged staffers not to make a fuss around Juneteenth celebrations, according to reporting in Rolling Stone.

Politics editor Andrew Perez obtained an email from Hegseth's office that "requested 'a passive approach to Juneteenth messaging' for the holiday on Thursday commemorating the end of slavery."

The email was sent by "the Pentagon’s Office of the Chief of Public Affairs, which said it wasn’t planning to publish Juneteenth-related content online," Perez wrote.
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A Texas hardware store has opened an investigation following an incident in which the only Black employee was allegedly the victim of a racist noose prank on Juneteenth, The Daily Beast reported on Wednesday.

"Devondrick Hartsfield, who had only been working at Ace Hardware in Arlington for four months, said he saw a backpack hanging from the ceiling along with a noose and rope after his manager told him to look up while he was at the back of the store," reported Brooke Leigh Howard. "Hartsfield said the manager told him it was a joke and that one of the other employees left his backpack at the store."

The manager later apologized, according to the report. Nevertheless, Hartsfield said, “I took it as a Black man being hung, dismembered. The bag... looked to me like a Black man who was hung and dismembered. I really feel like that was a message.” He said he is unsure whether he wants to continue working at the hardware store....

Neo-nazis are deeply worried their plan to ruin upcoming Juneteenth celebrations will fail, Rolling Stone reports.

Per Rolling Stone, neo-Nazi group Goyim Defense League (GDL) is encouraging supporters to watch a 30-minute film explaining alleged "white genocide."

However, because the white supremacists fear their ploy will be unsuccessful, the group is also urging comrades "to pose as concerned citizens," to heckle "local media outlets" and "'report this awful expression of hate!'"...