Juneteenth,

Also known as Black Independence Day, celebrating the end of slavery, is now an official holiday.

Well it’s about time, and this is a good start, but the system still needs vast changes to address the root cause, fairness in education, in housing, healthcare, living wages, voting rights, turning the justice and police systems inside out, not to mention teaching accurate history, something I never received that contributed to the white privilege I now have to accept and unlearn.

My sons have had to deal with racial injustices themselves, slavery and oppression runs through their bloodlines, the effects of which has wreaked havoc in ways they may not even know, or swept aside in the schoolyard.

Just a simple pleasure of walking the streets safely is something that many of us take for granted.

I’m grateful for this national holiday to be receiving so much attention today, grateful for all my black brothers and sisters, for the ancestors that are a part of my sons lineage, and I’m grateful that I’m awake enough to know that the work that must be done has to begin with me.