House and Senate pass legislation to make "Juneteenth" a federal holiday.

 

Sponsors of the bill pose with a flag. CNBC/Getty.

The House and Senate have passed legislation to make "Juneteenth" a federal holiday, sending the bill to Joe Biden. CNBC. All senators voted for the bill while only 14 Republicans in the House voted against it. The bill will make June 19th a federal holiday celebrating when the last slaves were freed in 1865 in Texas. 48 states and the District of Colombia already recognize the date as a holiday. There was very little opposition to the bill, with most objections based on the cost of another federal holiday. Representative Matt Rosendale opposed it on grounds of the holiday celebrating critical race theory and identity politics. Biden is expected to sign the bill into law. 

My Comment:

I agree with Matt Rosendale. I don't think that this should be a federal holiday, if for no other reason, the woke left want it. They should not get anything they want ever because they are evil racists who hate this country and everything it stands for. 

I do think that it's reasonable to celebrate the end of slavery. But I would prefer a more general holiday that celebrates the end of the Civil War along with the soldiers who fought in it. And, in what is now a hot take but used to be standard, I would include the Confederate war dead in that as well. The end of slavery would be a part of that but this would be a holiday that would celebrate all Americans, not just the tiny part that descended from slaves.  

Indeed, this holiday seems like a middle finger to everyone else in America. It's a holiday that is not important to most people and indeed, even most black people seem to have never heard of it. There is no reason for this holiday to only be about slavery. And it's not like we don't have a holiday honoring black people and the civil rights movement. With Martin Luther King Jr's birthday being a federal holiday this is just redundant. 

I'm also sympathetic to the argument that this will cost a ton of money. I think there are already too many federal holidays, many of which are pointless. It costs Americans a ton of tax dollars to give all these federal workers a day off 10 days a year, in addition to their vacation and PTO. Adding an 11th day (or 12th for election years) will cost millions of dollars. 

And I feel like Juneteenth will be yet another holiday that nobody really celebrates like Flag Day, Washington's Birthday and Martin Luther King Jr day. I seriously that I will get a day off of work for this "holiday" even though it would be nice to have a holiday between Memorial Day and July 4th. My guess is that the only way that this will effect me in anyway is that I won't get any mail that day. 

I also don't understand where this holiday came from. I had never heard of it until last year. Supposedly it was popular before among a certain crowd but it had no mainstream support. Indeed, if you had told me that there would be a holiday called Juneteenth in 2019 I would have looked at you like you were crazy. 

Finally, more than anything else, I think the name of the holiday is beyond stupid. Why not Emancipation Day? Some people also call it Jubilee Day, which is also pretty bad but is better than a made up word like Juneteenth. It makes the holiday impossible to take seriously.