Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
Mahogany Soulstar’s photo “Exhaustion” captures the mental damage of knowing one’s life is devalued. She links to a powerful blog post that should give us all something to contemplate.
I selected this image and the others in this post in honor of Juneteenth, an unofficial American holiday celebrating the end of slavery. On June 19, the Union Army took control of Texas and Major General Granger announced that the enslaved there were free. This happened a full two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. So it is a celebration of freedom, but freedom that was delayed.
That seems apt because, despite the advancements of the abortive Reconstruction and the victories of the Civil Rights Movement, true liberation remains elusive. The deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Rayshard Brooks remind us that Black people have never been fully liberated, not from the fear of being killed for living while Black. But just as Juneteenth commemorates the long-delayed Emancipation, this Juneteenth augers a reckoning with impunity with which police kill Black men and women.
The last straw has dropped on Black America’s back. And finally, thanks to the contemptuous disregard with which the killer kept his hand in his pocket while murdering Floyd in front of witness. The majority of Americans are joining with Black people to demand the end of impunity for these abuses.
The next SL images feature more Black avatars addressing the movement that brings a kind of hope that the original Juneteenth brought.
Pashon Morales-Renee’s photo captures a demonstration. Yes, a police car is on fire. I guess we should quote Donald Rumsfeld on this: “Freedom is untidy."
Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
The #BlackLivesMatter demand exists because the evidence is clear that to police, prosecutors, and far too many Americans, they don’t. The police did not arrest Ahmaud Arbery’s killers because they suddenly saw his lynching video. They had it in their possession for months. They arrested them because we saw the video. Breonna Taylor’s murderers are at-large and it appears that Louisville intends to hold them harmless. And of course, the simple fact that a few police have been arrested does not mean they will be convicted. The few times that police have been prosecuted, trials were delayed for a year or more and they have almost always been acquitted.
Still, let’s hope this Juneteenth is a time of change just like the one 155 years ago.
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