The article in the url below is an opinion piece by Kaitlyn Greenidge (the "features director at Harper's Bazaar") about Juneteenth, which was recently declared a federal holiday here in the U.S. Specifically, she discusses the history of Juneteenth and, most notably, how it is a commemoration that should remain confined to Texas:
"Though Juneteenth has recently gained nationwide attention, and just became a federal holiday, it originated as a Texas-specific celebration of the end of slavery. Other states and regions have their own traditions for marking Emancipation: Crucially, these celebrations have different dates from place to place, because freedom was gained through wildly different ways for Black people across this country."
In other words, June 19 (1865) was the day in which slaves in Texas learned of their freedom. While the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Lincoln in January, 1863, news spread slowly at the time and took over two years to reach the state. Consequently, the same event is commemorated on different days in different states:
"In New York State, where gradual Emancipation was put into place to ease white fears at the expense of Black comfort, Emancipation Day was celebrated on the 5th of July. … Some Black communities in the North and South have also celebrated Emancipation Day on the 1st of January, because that was when Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation into law."
Or, perhaps more starkly:
"Juneteenth is not a part of any state's history except Texas. But it is perhaps easier for some white Northerners to tut at the duplicity of white Texas slaveholders than to look at how Black people became free in their own states — as in Massachusetts, through having to sue for their freedom."
Beyond this fact-based history, however, the broader point Greenidge wants to make is about the commodification of the day (and the broader associated struggle), a corruption of the notion of what the day represents that reflects the shallow reality of many corporate promises made in the aftermath of 2020's BLM protests (e.g.,
here):
"It was with dismay that I realized, a few weekends ago, that Walmart is now selling Juneteenth T-shirts."
In other words, she argues, assigning June 19 as a holiday is a way to alleviate guilt while generating revenue and, perhaps most importantly, avoid the need to deliver more substantive concessions:
"In my most cynical moments, I think that the rush to embrace Juneteenth is about undermining the right to protest of Black people who are alive now. 'Why are they still going on about voting rights and police violence and clean air and health care and schools,' a white politician can say to his non-Black constituents next year, 'when we gave them a day off?'"
The consequences of an event like Juneteenth becoming 'mainstream,' according to the author, is that it loses much of what made it important in the first place:
"But mostly, I am sad because when a holiday becomes co-opted like this, those who can gain a sense of self and solidarity from celebrating it often lose it. The agency that comes from deciding your own traditions … becomes lost to a corporate calendar and a megastore selling you a Juneteenth cookout checklist."
Along similar lines, I have begun to see the wider use of the term pinkwashing, a word that I plan to add to the glossary in the next edition of the book. My definition:
"The adoption and promotion of LGBTQ+ friendly media statements and campaigns by companies without the more substantive commitment of meaningful change. Also associated with the marketing and commodification of the LGBTQ+ cause, again without meaningful progress on substantive issues."
In a broader discussion of pinkwashing in the article in the second url below, which has been around for some time, the accusation is that corporations are deploying this approach more than ever before:
"With the gay pride season coming to a close, here is a question: have you withdrawn money from a multi-coloured gAyTM this summer? Or have you even tucked into your Burger King Pride Whopper? … Celebrating LGBT rights is a fashionable topic in marketing land. Long gone are the days where marketers may have only coyly targeted the LGBT community. In today's marketing, at least for some, even queer products for a straight audience have become mainstream – used to sell anything from fast food to credit cards, clothing to eReaders – but it's not clear whether this is a real "win win" for the market and the LGBT community."
The goal, it is suggested, is the "pink dollar":
"The emergence of AIDS in the 1980s helped to rein in commercial attitudes towards the LGBT community and it wasn't until the second half of the decade that the first few mainstream brands – Absolut Vodka's campaign in The Advocate, for example – started cautiously appearing in gay magazines alongside the community organisations and businesses. It was the 1990s which saw a genuine turnaround. Advertisers openly hailed the 'Dream Market' of urban, well-educated, double-income gay and lesbian couples."
All of this, of course, is a gamble by corporations that such transparent efforts to co-opt certain 'causes' will pay off commercially. Given the transparency, if corporations do benefit from such marketing efforts, it will be either because we don't care enough to point out the hypocrisy, or we don't care enough to notice in the first place.
Take care
David
David Chandler
© Sage Publications, 2020
Emancipation Goes Corporate
By Kaitlyn Greenidge
June 20, 2021
The New York Times
Late Edition – Final
SR4
The rise of pride marketing and the curse of 'pink washing'
By Stephen Dahl
August 26, 2014
The Conversation
