On Juneteenth
What does it have to do with me?
Yesterday while playing with my daughter on Father’s day, I was in bliss thinking about how great it was that Monday was a day off. But then I received a ping on an important project we are working on which made me look at my desktop calendar and I noticed that it didn’t mention a thing about a Monday holiday.
I was sure I had read it was a holiday somewhere! I looked at my mobile calendar, and sure enough, it does say ‘Juneteenth (observed)’. So I wasn’t dreaming it! A bit more digging and I found out that it wasn’t an official day off and if you want to take it off, you should use a personal day. I shrugged it off as ‘Makes sense. I don’t really know what it is and we can’t have every federal holiday off'. (Side note: why is it exactly that we can’t have every federal holiday off given all that we have learned about WLB during the past couple years and if banks and government services can? But I digress)
I was just annoyed that I didn’t have the day off to go to the beach, but I got on with it and was online working today. No biggie.
SURFING FACEBOOK AT WORK
But then I read a comment on a Facebook thread that really irked me. A person who I view as quite well respected said to the effect: ‘Juneteenth is a made up holiday that no one heard of before George Floyd, and it is just pandering. If they (African Americans) want to recognize it, they can, but it has nothing to do with me because my family wasn’t in the USA when this happened’. This is a person I respect a lot who I know envisions a world where we are all getting closer together. Here he was, coming off as cynical and divisive.
There are so many things about that comment which irked me - but the specific point about ‘has nothing to do with me’ made me pause and wonder if I too am implicitly saying that by shrugging the day off.
A basic premise of mine, is that it is rare that you can find a person who would say they don’t want more peace and harmony in the world. It is the method to peace and harmony that varies. So a question that arises is, if most of us want that, how can we get there if we also say things like ‘this has nothing to do with me’.
EMPATHY
We are all intertwined in some degree and so everything on some level has to do with each of us and if we want harmony, doesn't treating things as 'theirs' vs 'ours', contribute to a lack of harmony? We have a problem in society currently in that we seem to think that in order to get peace and harmony, we need to agree and have the same views.
As a product manager, building empathy for a user is the core of what we do. Empathizing doesn’t mean agreeing or sympathizing or experiencing. It means to simply understand the feelings/thoughts/experiences the other person has.
If I look at it from this lens, how can I not take the time to actually empathize with those to whom Juneteenth is important. How can I just let the day go by rather than looking at it as an opportunity to understand why it is important to so many?
KNOWN UNKNOWNS
To be honest, when I first hear of Juneteenth a couple years ago during all the protests in 2020, I also thought it was another outcome of identity politics and performative actions rather than meaningful change. I hadn't heard of the day until then and thus thought it was new thing, but that that is the very nature of 'unknown unknowns'. Juneteenth is now an 'known unknown'. Thank you Rumsfield for the framework.
Communities descended from the American slave trade have recognized it for a long time so just because I only heard of it recently, doesn't mean it is new.
As I thought about it more, I asked, what exactly is the problem that I have with taking the day off? How much am I contributing to this continued divide?
What harm can it do if it is taken off? None that I can think of. Worst case scenario - we get another holiday that helps us all to have a better quality of life. Best case scenario, we learn more about our neighbors and fellow citizens.
The arguments of we can’t have a holiday for every federal holiday', or 'not every country celebrates it' all fall apart pretty quickly if you really think about them because there are other days that are holidays but could also have the same arguments applied to them.
Saying I don’t want to ‘use up a PTO day’, is a bit superficial. The question is ‘why do I think it would be using up a PTO day’?
CHANGE IS AN OPPORTUNITY
It is change. That is all. When change feels unexplained, it makes a person uncomfortable, and it is natural to try an ignore it or rationalize it as something that doesn’t make sense. But another way to address change is to understand the reason of the change and then that too will remove the lack of comfort.
If I look at this as an opportunity to learn, it would be another way to address the feelings that come with change.
And so that is what I am setting out to do.
That statement of ‘it has nothing to do with me’ made me recoil and to check myself on my thoughts on Juneteenth. My personal values are firmly within the camp of: 'we are part of one global humanity, and as humans we collectively screw up constantly' (as the human suffering from the Russia-Ukraine war shows as well), and on that basis alone, slavery even existing is something that is a stain on humanity and thus _does_ have to do with me no matter what sub-ethnicity/nationality/race I identify with.
The reality is that Juneteenth _is_ a federal holiday. It _does_ matter to a lot of people in our country. It _is_ an important part of the country which is the one I call home, which makes it the history of _my_ country. Hence it does have to do with me. And if I want to see more harmony in the country, it makes sense for me to use those skills of empathy and try to understand what it is that makes it important to those who do already take the day off. If I don't do so, how can I expect others to care about things that are important to me and my identity?
The world doesn’t need to be a zero sum game. Love and compassion are not finite. Learning and education are not limited.
To that end, I decided to learn more about Juneteenth itself and I welcome to hear from anyone who wants to share about it as well.
For anyone else interested, here are some resources I started with. I’m not going to give my views on it specifically, as I am not an expert by any means. My goal is simply that I don't become that parent that my daughter views as an old curmudgeon who is resistant to change, and instead supporting her to be a part of that change.
https://www.latimes.com/sports/lakers/story/2021-06-18/kareem-abdul-jabbar-on-juneteenth-social-justice-work-and-more (a personal hero)
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/20/black-americans-living-abroad-reflect-on-juneteenth-holiday.html
#juneteenth #freedomday #pto #worklifebalance #bethechange
Enjoyed this post - thank you. I will check out the shared resources as well. My favourite part is below :)
"The world doesn’t need to be a zero sum game. Love and compassion are not finite. Learning and education are not limited."