Juneteenth
From Wikipedia:
Juneteenth is a holiday celebrating the emancipation of those who had been enslaved in the United States. Originating in Texas, it is now celebrated annually on the 19th of June throughout the United States, with varying official recognition.
This day represents the emancipation of the last remaining enslaved African Americans in the Confederacy.
GitHub and Juneteenth
GitHub invited all employees to listen, learn, engage, and participate on a global Day Of Learning on Juneteenth. While a company has the option of not doing anything about it (it is not an official holiday at the moment), or give the day as a day off, I think GitHub approach is the most effective for Juneteenth.
We have experienced several initiatives across GitHub that made me super proud of working for this company: from book club meetings to Empathy Circles to perspective sharing through issues. Up to this day, I am still amazed by how Hubbers (GitHub employees) are involved in these subjects and I have to say, it has changed me as a person 😄.
This is the main reason I am writing this post today: I decided that, as part of this opportunity that GitHub gave me, I was going to make a plan to be more aware of:
- This day in American history.
- Understanding/reading more about the challenges the black community has to deal with up to this day.
My plan for Juneteenth
I’m a white, man, heterosexual, cisgender, software engineer in Silicon Valley. I’m basically the poster person for privilege, especially in the US. So for me, at this point in history, is not enough anymore to “not be racist”, I also need to be actively involved in supporting this fight.
I’m also an immigrant, an Hispanic, in a multicultural marriage, speaking 3 languages at home, father to a daughter that will have to face her fair share of challenges if the world does not change. So I need to be, today more than ever, an active part of this change.
I am celebrating this Juneteenth by trying to become a better ally. First, I want to truly understand what the day means, and second, based on most recent events in the world, I want to get a bit deeper into how racism/discrimination affects and hides in our everyday lives. Being aware/understanding more about this will help me become a more effective ally, a better person, a better dad.
Easy reads on Instagram
Here are some Instagram posts shared by a coworker that I found easy and super helpful to read:
Staying out of politics is a privilege in action.
8 Lessons about racism helpful for a white person.
9 Mistakes white people make when fighting for racial justice.
8 Critical Questions to think about as you strive towards consistent solidarity.
Teaching discrimination
As racism is engrained into the culture, I was interested in knowing how you can teach the discrimination concept in schools and found this video which is gold 👌
This video hit me, and I think the teacher does an amazing job of showcasing discrimination. When you see the video, you would think this happens only to kids (as they usually are a sponge of what they see at home), but It turns out the same technique applies to adults:
Books to read
One of the action items for this Juneteenth was to do a bit more research about which books to add to my shelf and commit to reading them. I found a couple I would be reading over the next weeks:
| White Fragility | So you want to talk about race |
|---|---|
I will let you know how it goes :)
Summary
I decided to share here some of my thoughts during Juneteenth. While I think this is more of an archive for me to go back and add more things to share with the world, I hope someone in a similar situation to mine found this reading useful and use this as a first step towards becoming an effective ally. If there is any reading you want to do after this, you should check out Guide to Allyship.