This Juneteenth is a somber one

[Kind of Blue]

3. Juneteenth and the Detention of Children in Texas

"Juneteenth exists in this kind of cultural borderland, acknowledged by African-Americans, scarcely noticed by most whites, because embracing the date requires a willingness to countenance slavery’s legacy in this country. The American reticence to look at history directly has broader implications than the relative significance of June 19th on the calendar. The unconscionable, indefensible separation of children from their parents at the United States’s southern border has inspired widespread condemnation. A common refrain is that such actions are un-American and run counter to the nation’s values. Yet the separation of families has deep roots in the American past. It was not at all uncommon for children to be sold separately from their parents on the auction block. In fact, the sale of children was such a common feature of slavery that Daina Ramey Berry, a professor of history at the University of Texas, was able to construct a database of their pricing and sales history for her book The Price for Their Pound of Flesh.

This is the same nation that, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, intent on executing a self-proclaimed civilizing mission, separated Native American children from their families. Even the current system of child welfare reflects systematic biases regarding the removal of children from their parents’ homes. Black children were overwhelmingly more likely to be taken from their homes than white children, even when they faced problems of similar severity at home.

On this Juneteenth, we have received the ambivalent blessing of clarity. We recognize the historic demise of an institution that justified the separating of parent from child in Texas only to see that phenomenon occur in a different time, under different circumstances, but with a similar trauma inflicted on children. The central value of history is to serve as inoculation against the stupidity, ignorance, and cruelties of the past.""

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/juneteenth-and-the-detention-of-children-in-texas?mbid=nl_Daily%20062018&CNDID=24484742&spMailingID=13726728&spUserID=MTMzMTgyNTMxODYxS0&spJobID=1421829525&spReportId=MTQyMTgyOTUyNQS2