Juneteenth: A Slap in the Face
The first flower offering for ancestors at the farm: basil, black-eyed susans, queen anne’s lace
I just lost a friend. 48 year old Black woman who is a plant genius, a seed keeper, and generosity embody. I think we all lost someone very special with her sudden passing. However, death is not an end, but a transition. Josie is an Ancestor now, I’m excited to celebrate that in the gardens and at the altar on the land with you.
With her passing, I couldn’t help but wonder what happened. The obiturary states “natural causes”. Was it stress related? That’s not a crazy question to ask. Did racism, capitalism, imperialism take Josie from us? It’s not a crazy question to ask.
Overwhelm and stress are huge killers of Black Americans. How was she doing really? I’m not sure and it feels too late to ask. I don’t want to torture myself with this question, and the empire that is the United States, makes it hard to not consider what happened.
Esaw Snipes-Garner, widow of Eric Garner, just passed away “due to health complications". Grief and incessant pain are health complications.
Today is Juneteenth, yesterday was Josie’s funeral. I sat in a church grateful for the voices of the choir. The vibrations of Black song are somatic frequencies that I believe have helped us survive the brutality of the United States and white people and whiteness for centuries. Today is Juneteenth and we are witnessing ICE agents hunt people down, bounty killers are next up as the slave catching force sweeping across the nation.
Today is Juneteenth and I feel heavy with the anxiety of wondering what it will happen to Black Americans as Israelis escalate violence in West Asia. My heart is with the people of Palestine, Lebanan, Gaza, Yemen. Because they are humans. Because we are connected.
I’m glad my people are celebrating Juneteenth. We are still here. No empires will ever kill all of us. This is why they fight and rig systems so hard. The United States has lost nearly every war it has waged, including the war on Black life. I want us to have more than survival and celebration despite the empires’ attempts to kill us.
Like my prayers with every plant, I call forth our thriving. I call forth Palestinian thriving, Congolese thriving, Sudanese thriving. This means no threats of violence, no more weaponized starvation and systemic rape. This means no more slow, covert genocide through overwhelm and anxiety because of the knife at our necks that are capitalism and patriarchy.
There will not be a Juneteenth celebration at the land this year. I am not sure if I will ever do that, but I am excited to share base building efforts are in the works. I am back my loves! I am planting and preparing space for you! Soon we will have communal room to make freedom dreams realities in every garden.
My wish for Juneteenth is that we see that the clutches of empire are very much killing us. Violently. That we do not despair in being honest; there is no salvation in the Democrats- they are imperialist, murderous and dangerous. That we find power in saying, “The plantation is still alive, and we are going to get free.”
On this Juneteenth, I am choosing to honor my rage and grief. To write and be vulnerable. My people deserve better we will have it and the United States will never be able to provide it for us.
Rest in peace Josie and Esaw and all the martyrs of supremacy, tyranny, and violent peoples’ insecurity.