Building capacity for personal, organizational, and societal change with an intentional equity focus
Happy Juneteenth! If you’re like me — someone who’s white identified and grew up not even knowing what Juneteenth was — the holiday may, honestly, feel a little awkward to you. I think that’s okay. Acknowledging that discomfort provides the opportunity for growth. If you’re not sure what Juneteenth is all about, this June 19th spend even a little time learning the “reason for the season”. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture is a great place to start to understand the history and meaning of Juneteenth. (https://lnkd.in/emMC2uhF) As an individual, celebrate Juneteenth because you believe in the bedrock American notion of freedom for all. This is not in any way meant as a call to erase the past or to ignore the inequities of the present. Celebrating Juneteenth doesn’t mean we’ve fully met that ideal as a county, but it does recognize a critical moment when the county came closer to living into our stated national beliefs. If you are an employer or leading an institution or organization (a rotary club, a little league, any organization that has meetings, events, or even social media), Juneteenth should be a treated as a holiday in the same way that July 4th and Memorial Day are treated at your organization. Full stop. Whether your organization is made up people from a diverse range of races and ethnicities, or entirely of people that are white-identified (a topic for another day), celebrating Juneteenth is critically important to align our actions with our values. Even adding a floating holiday, honestly, does not cut it. As Maya Angelou said, “equal rights, fair play, justice, are all like the air: we all have it, or none of us has it. That is the truth of it.” If we put our team members in a position of choosing to opt-in or opt-out of that sentiment, how can we ever really expect to live in our most fundamental of shared ideals? #Juneteenth #equity #valuesalignment
