so I talked to some people at random on the street, because I was bothered by this exchange. There are a range of responses and I think that the responses are very telling.
I wont do a detailed writeup here. This one is the one I want to hilite:
Two middle aged, very poor African-Americans walking down the street in daylight, the woman with a shopping cart and the man with clean but ordinary clothes. I say in a loud voice from many feet away "Is today a holiday of come kind?" The guy replies facing me "the Post Office is closed, I dont know" .. I said "something is on" .. "yeah" .. I get creative .. "but you have been to Texas right?" and he says in a stage whisper with his hand next to his mouth like he is shielding the statement "its Juneteenth" .. I said "nobody cares about that here, right?" He replies "its a DAY, just a day. that's all it is". This is consistent with what I was referring to.. this man did not want to talk about this, or say the name.
After congratulating myself silently because you know "someone was wrong on the Internet" .. I walked a a few blocks and I saw an upright, clean cut African-American man walking, dressed in a way that suggested he was a Church member or off-duty uniform services, also very middle-aged. This man had a clean white t-shirt with an elaborate, dare I say "European logo style" t-shirt that said Juneteenth in some formal typeset way. So I bother to write this long and too-personal reply because "someone on the Internet was wrong" ;-)
Two middle aged, very poor African-Americans walking down the street in daylight, the woman with a shopping cart and the man with clean but ordinary clothes. I say in a loud voice from many feet away "Is today a holiday of come kind?" The guy replies facing me "the Post Office is closed, I dont know" .. I said "something is on" .. "yeah" .. I get creative .. "but you have been to Texas right?" and he says in a stage whisper with his hand next to his mouth like he is shielding the statement "its Juneteenth" .. I said "nobody cares about that here, right?" He replies "its a DAY, just a day. that's all it is". This is consistent with what I was referring to.. this man did not want to talk about this, or say the name.
After congratulating myself silently because you know "someone was wrong on the Internet" .. I walked a a few blocks and I saw an upright, clean cut African-American man walking, dressed in a way that suggested he was a Church member or off-duty uniform services, also very middle-aged. This man had a clean white t-shirt with an elaborate, dare I say "European logo style" t-shirt that said Juneteenth in some formal typeset way. So I bother to write this long and too-personal reply because "someone on the Internet was wrong" ;-)