Juneteenth, also known as Emancipation Day or Freedom Day, celebrates the end of slavery in the United States.*

Years ago, our son’s orthodontist commented to me that our sons were similarly handicapped when applying to college because they were white boys. He smiled, a virtual nudge-nudge, we’re in this together, right? His son’s application to dental school had been denied, he said, to make room for Black students. So he said. I generally had walked away from such comments, and I didn’t want to annoy the man fixing Alan’s teeth, but I didn’t walk away that day. I turned back and told him off with calm reasoning. [Should his son be advantaged in admission to dental school because his father had gone? Because his father was white? Was my son unqualified as Salutatorian for undergraduate study? Had this man looked at the numbers? Who did he think he was? I was angry and it was a long time ago. I don’t remember exactly what we said to one another. I am angry thinking about it now.]

Later that day, I discovered online that his son had been convicted of a drug offense, and given that one of the dentists we’d visited some time before was eventually pushed out of the profession for abusing the drugs she dispensed and that drug abuse among dentists was disproportionately high, I felt that race was the least of that son’s barriers.

Later, I discovered that this “orthodontist,” the only one in the county, was not actually an orthodontist at all. He was a dentist, but without the specialized training for orthodontics. By then, we’d had a negative experience with his work on our younger son’s teeth.

Later still, that man playing orthodontist was forced from his profession because he was suffering from dementia.

Over the years, I have heard all sorts of stupid, incorrect, offensive, horrific and racist things. I have been with friends who were cat-called and harassed for their race (or dress or age or gender). It’s hit me too. Teachers I worked with have told me what women are good at or not good at and despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Math comes to mind. Objectivity. Abstract reasoning. When I said nothing, the experience haunted me, even when the remarks were not directed at me.

As a young girl, I was taught to be polite, to be silent in the face of offenses, to turn my head away. To smile. Girls were taught that in my youth. Be nice. Be polite. Be good.

When I was still young I recognized the danger of not speaking up. Even when I was fifteen, I regretted silence in the face of bigotry, and I vowed to say truth. I stood up on the bus and walked forward to the driver to report harassment, enlisting help when I was afraid to speak to that white man because he was older and bigger and drunk. I protested against Vietnam [the American War], and the next war, and the wars since then. I marched. I shouted and sang. I took a stand.

I also began taking a personal stand. I say what I think directly to people. I try always to do that kindly, to do it in such a way that the person I am confronting has a way of maintaining their pride. I try always to think before speaking: Think! Will you be sorry later that you let those words slide?

Somewhere in my middle years, or even before, and certainly as I age, I got loud. I became determined and assertive and a royal pain in the behind. I am no longer a good girl, not quite a sweet little old lady. I am old enough to be your grandmother. I am old enough to know better. I am old enough to take a moral stand.

Don’t use that language in front of me.

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* “Juneteenth, also known as Emancipation Day or Freedom Day, celebrates the end of slavery in the United States. On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, and issued General Order No. 3, which informed the people of Texas that all enslaved people were now free. Although the Emancipation Proclamation came 2 ½ years earlier on January 1, 1863, many enslavers continued to hold enslaved Black people captive after the announcement. The official handwritten record of General Order No. 3 is preserved at the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C.

“Juneteenth has been formally celebrated in Texas since 1866 and is the oldest known celebration commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. Juneteenth became a federal holiday on June 17, 2021. On June 1, 2021, the Oregon Senate passed House Bill 2168, making Juneteenth an official state holiday every June 19 beginning in 2022.”—Oregon Historical Society