Hello, class. Today we’re going to talk about the  Commodification of Juneteenth.

It used to be that no companies or employers would touch Juneteenth with a ten foot pole. Juneteenth is also known as Black Independence Day, marked on June 19th, 1865. Although Black people are still fighting for basic equity and protections, Juneteenth symbolizes African American culture and celebration. So, Google Doodle? 

Nope. 

That is until a young Black artist by the name of Davian Chester designed one in June of 2019 that, deservingly, went viral. For the subsequent two years, Google has now marked the day.  Federal holiday?

Not until 2021. 156 years later and one year after a global uprising against police brutality and the killing of unarmed Black people.

In the realm of capitalism and colonizing, white supremacy always looks for ways to profit off of Black pain and our joy. So, this year all-white marketing teams signed off on designing napkins and picnicware with Juneteenth colors while co-opting African American Vernacular English (AAVE) with “it’s the freedom for me”. bell hooks examined cultural commodification of race and difference as the dominant culture “eating the other”.

“Within commodity culture, ethnicity becomes spice, seasoning that can liven up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture.

Cultural appropriation of the Other assuages feelings of deprivation and lack that assault the psyches of radical white youth who choose to be disloyal to western civilization. Concurrently, marginalized groups, deemed Other, who have been ignored, rendered invisible, can be seduced by the emphasis on Otherness, by its commodification, because it offers the promise of recognition and reconciliation. When the dominant culture demands that the Other be offered as sign that progressive political change is taking place, that the American Dream can indeed be inclusive of difference, it invites a resurgence of essentialist cultural nationalism. The acknowledged Other must assume recognizable forms. Hence, it is not African American culture formed in resistance to contemporary situations that surfaces, but nostalgic evocation of a ‘glorious’ past.”

bell hooks – Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance

Large chain stores started competing with established smaller, Black owned businesses’ products for the holiday and white conglomerates tried to trademark the word “Juneteenth”.  This is why we can’t have “nice” things. Not even our own freedom.

Quiz time, class:

How did you do?