(Late reflection post…meant to share on Juneteenth…but guess it’s good as any to still post today.) Happy reading neighbors…
Symbols are never just symbols. In America, they’re threads woven into the fabric of our history, carrying the weight of triumph, trauma, and everything in between. A few days before a Juneteenth 5K run, I learned this lesson anew when my former boss…a white woman…shared her plan to have a firetruck spray a “water rainbow” to cool runners in the 120-degree heat. What she saw as a clever, refreshing idea, my African American coworker and I saw as a painful misstep, one that revealed the chasm between good intentions and historical awareness.
The Juneteenth 5K was a celebration of Black liberation, marking the 1865 moment when enslaved African Americans in Texas learned of their freedom. It was a day for community, reflection, and pride in resilience. During a planning meeting, my boss pitched her idea: a firetruck would create a “water rainbow” for runners to pass through at the finish line. She presented it as a practical solution to the heat, but the phrase “water rainbow” raised red flags for us. In the LGBTQ community, water can symbolize release, freedom, or even an orgasm…a nod to liberation and joy. While she never explicitly tied her idea to Pride Month, the term “water rainbow” felt like a subtle, perhaps unintentional, reference to those connotations, especially since June overlaps with Pride celebrations. But Juneteenth isn’t about that. It’s about a specific Black struggle and victory, and the mismatch felt jarring.
More troubling was the firetruck itself. To us, it evoked the Birmingham riots of 1963, when firehoses were turned on Black protesters, including children, with brutal force, tearing skin and dignity alike. Dogs accompanied those hoses, weaponizing water against the fight for civil rights. Beyond that, water carried another weight: the transatlantic slave trade, from the 16th to 19th centuries, peaking in the 18th, when millions of Africans were forcibly transported to the Americas. Some chose to leap into the Atlantic’s depths rather than endure the horrors of bondage, rape, and shame. For us, a firetruck spraying water wasn’t just a cooling tactic…it was a symbol steeped in pain, a reminder of oppression’s violence.
We approached her privately after the meeting, explaining why the idea was insensitive. We laid out the historical context: Birmingham’s firehoses, the slave trade’s drownings, the weight of water as a symbol of suffering rather than relief. We noted that “water rainbow,” whether she meant it or not, could be read as a nod to LGBTQ symbolism, which diluted the focus on Juneteenth’s Black-specific narrative. Her response was dismissive. She’d “looked it up online” and found nothing offensive about firetrucks or water. Then, in a moment of frustration, she called symbolisms “stupid.” When we pressed her to clarify, she quickly pointed to the “water to the LGBTQ community,” as if that was the issue. But my coworker and I exchanged a glance…we knew she was deflecting. Her real dismissal was aimed at the firetruck’s historical baggage, the deeper wound we were trying to address.
Her pushback stung. She’d planned this days in advance, yet hadn’t thought to consult her Black team members or consider the cultural implications. It was a blind spot, one that assumed her perspective was enough. We explained that a quick internet search wouldn’t uncover the lived truths found in history books or oral stories. The firetruck wasn’t just a vehicle; it was a symbol of systemic violence. Water wasn’t just refreshing; it was a reminder of those who chose death over enslavement. We warned her that this could spark backlash, especially on social media, where cultural missteps are swiftly called out. As her African American advisors, we’d face scrutiny for being complicit if we let it slide. That risk, more than our historical reasoning, seemed to shift her stance. She scrapped the plan, but it felt like a concession to optics, not a genuine reckoning with the harm.
This experience left me grappling with the power of symbols in modern America. A firetruck might seem neutral to some, but for others, it’s a haunting echo of 1963 Birmingham. Water might cool a runner, but it also carries the weight of those lost in the Atlantic. Even the “water rainbow,” whether a nod to LGBTQ liberation or not, felt out of place in a space meant to honor Black resilience. My boss’s dismissal of symbolisms as “stupid” revealed a deeper truth: it’s easier to reject what you don’t understand than to confront its significance. But symbols aren’t trivial…they’re the shorthand of history, and in a nation as layered as America, they demand care.
This Juneteenth misstep, planned days in advance, showed me that good intentions falter without historical grounding. Understanding symbols requires listening, humility, and a willingness to see beyond one’s own lens. My boss may have dropped her plan, but the lesson lingers: to honor America’s history, we must honor the stories behind its symbols, lest we reopen wounds we never meant to touch.
No comments:
Post a Comment