Juneteenth and the Black American Experience: Why We Shouldn't Have to Shrink to Tell Our Own Story

Hey Rebel,

Every year, Juneteenth rolls around, and I’m reminded of something uncomfortable:

Black Americans are often expected to make room for everyone else’s story while being told not to center our own.

We are expected to celebrate everybody.

Acknowledge everybody.

Include everybody.

But the moment we speak specifically about the descendants of U.S. chattel slavery and the unique Black American experience, people suddenly get uncomfortable.

And I think it’s time we talk about why.

One of the things I’ve been sitting with this Juneteenth is how uncomfortable people become when Black Americans take up space.

Not Black people collectively.

Not the diaspora as a whole.

Black Americans.

The descendants of U.S. chattel slavery.

The people whose ancestors built this country while being denied the very freedoms they helped create.

For whatever reason, when we center our own experience, people get uncomfortable.

We’re expected to make room for everybody else’s history.

Everybody else’s culture.

Everybody else’s narrative.

Everybody else’s pain.

But when we say, “This is our story,” suddenly we’re accused of being divisive.

That has always fascinated me.

No one questions the right of other groups to preserve their history, celebrate their lineage, or honor the specific experiences that shaped them.

Yet when Black Americans do it, we’re often expected to dilute it, soften it, or broaden it until the original story becomes unrecognizable.

Juneteenth reminds me that our story deserves to be told in its entirety.

Not because it’s more important than anyone else’s.

But because it matters.

The Black American experience is unique.

The descendants of U.S. chattel slavery have a unique history.

A unique culture.

A unique language.

A unique resilience.

A unique contribution to this country.

And there should be space to acknowledge that without apology.

I spent yesterday talking to my boys about our lineage, our history, and what it means to know who you are.

Because I never want them to feel invisible.

I never want them to believe they have to shrink themselves to make others comfortable.

I never want them to believe that honoring their ancestors somehow takes away from honoring someone else’s.

There is room for everyone at the table.

There is also room for Black Americans to speak about our own experience without being told to move over every time we do.

Juneteenth is a reminder that our ancestors survived.

They endured.

They built.

They persevered.

And because they did, we have every right to remember them, honor them, and tell their story.

Fully.

Without permission.

Without apology.

Happy Juneteenth.

Want to stay connected?

-Wendy Nicole Anderson

www.wendynicoleanderson.com