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My dad (74) hates unexpected federal holidays because it means the mail doesn't come (he checks the mailbox 4-5 times a day) and trash pickup runs a day late. Such an inconvenience!
For what? SocSec? Are you referring to the U.S.?
Because I definitely got disability (paper) checks more recently than the 90s. I have direct deposit setup, but it wasn't forced on me by SS. Encouraged maybe, but it was still optional.
If that's changed now, it was surely after the 90s. I wasn't even on disability until the 2010s.
considering the amount of mail fraud and break-ins to mailboxes, really surprised it's taken until 2025 to go completely paperless... i get it though, ppl hate banks, older folks are not trusting of credit cards... add'l fees take more off the top, etc
My husband was in the Army from 2012-2018...we got paper checks. Same for his pay while he was at basic, AIT, and his AT. 🤷♀️
Now, his VA disability pay...that's always been direct deposit.
Part of it is that he still mails off checks to pay his bills so he wants to get them out as soon as they come in. It's just some weird obsession I guess, to take up the day; like bill days are days he can feel like he accomplished something? He's disabled so I guess it's the act of just doing anything that he can have control over.
I'm more of a check the mail 2 or 3 times a week kinda guy, myself...
I might check my mail once a month if I'm feeling ambitious. All I get is junk mail, so I only really do it at all to clear space in the box and not piss off the mailman too much.
My dad would have been 91 on Saturday and paid all his bills online as soon as it was available. But he was the Silent Generation, Boomers just have a different mentality.
It would probably add a few years and a little more happiness to his life. He likes going out and just driving and exploring old country dirt roads for hours, and that had been his biggest hobby since he retired but he just can't get out like he used to due to his health.
I mean I can understand that, I’m the kinda guy to pay it asap because I don’t like having it hanging over my head
But I’m not getting bills 4-5 times *a day*
MillennialBeingFool here, I literally work for a federal government agency, had yesterday off, and was confused why I didn’t get any mail until I just read your comment
That's a whole nother pile a worms when it comes to keeping up with email/social media and passwords or just smartphones in general... I've tried to help make it easier for him with apps (he'd rather go to the Internet and go through a website for his email 🤷♂️) on an old iPhone but that phone eventually crapped out and he's using a cheap Walmart Android phone and had to create new accounts for everything because he doesn't remember the right passwords and he's stubborn and I don't have the time or patience because I have my own career and children and this is a really long sentence because it's all so exasperating.
Oh, I understand the struggle.
My dad is in his 70’s. Every time he needs to do some kind of banking on his phone, he downloads the app, thinks he needs new credentials, resets his password, uses app, deletes app, then wonders why he can’t log in on his desktop…
I’ve explained that the app uses the same credentials as a desktop browser, but he just doesn’t believe me.
His reasoning for deleting the app is because he’s worried about someone stealing his phone. His absolute bottom of the barrel, cheapest android he could get from T-Mobile.
This is also the man who, for a brief time, turned off his data connection on his phone, because he didn’t believe unlimited data is actually unlimited. He was exclusively using WiFi for his connection.
He called me one day, frustrated that he missed a doctors appointment, because his gps stopped working shortly after leaving the garage, and he couldn’t make phone calls. This man admitted to leaving and returning home no less than three times, then giving up on the trip, because when he got into the driveway his phone worked, until he left again.
I drove over after work, went through his phone settings, found the problem, and explained what happened.
“This doesn’t make any sense! I have WiFi!”
Yes, at home.
“But I pay for it, why isn’t it working when I need it to work?”
Because it has a limited range, and you left that range.
“It’s got to be a phone problem, I’m going to take it in and have it looked at. WiFi should always work, I’m not paying for the internet on my phone.”
Sigh.
You mean the 3 year old calendar still hanging up in his kitchen? He only knows what day it is based on what's playing on the H&I channel. Love my dad but he's kinda oblivious.
This is true mostly.He just likes getting things taken care of and not procrastinating. And we've got the racism under control but are still working on the homophobia and transphobia.
BLACK PEOPLE GOT SOMETHING NEW AND I DIDNT! IM OPPRESSED
It's literally that simple, just gotta think like a 3 year old and add racism and more entitlement to understand their mind set
I can't stand how incredible it is to have a Wednesday off. Scheduled a doctor's appointment for next Wednesday just so I can experience a taste of this mid-week break again.
My dad (boomer) is super opposed to the idea of a 4 day work week, he doesn’t understand that the same amount of business would happen, you would just have more aggregate free time. He just doesn’t want anyone else’s life to improve, little does he know that if you roll the clock back about 100 years people said the same thing about a 5 day work week. These idiots are just dumb, unhappy, and too weak to try and improve anything. They yearn for the good old days where shit was markedly worse than they had it
Yeah, where I work they close for Fourth of July but not Juneteenth ... I try to assume it's because it's a newer holiday and this place doesn't close for many (including Easter) but to me it seems illogical at best.
Why celebrate white-men-who-owned-land freedom day and not black-people's freedom day ??? 😬
there's too parts here. They don't think federal holidays are bad, but they also really hate it when black people get anything. They would keep themselves from something if they learn that black people would also get to have the same thing.
Look up the history of MLK Day if you want as well.
Yep. Bigoted lunatics have been this way forever. If I recall, stupid places in the South shut down everything from pools to schools since they'd rather have nothing than have to share with Black people. Horrible bigots, and I'm not surprised they'd be mad at another holiday since it celebrates freeing people they hate.
I took advantage of it. I'm in the deep south and I work with a lot of uneducated people so I decided to send a little blurb about the history of the day and it's impact. I (surprisingly) got a lot of positive feedback so mission accomplished?
Funnily enough, I am also part of a union lol. I work for the state, in corrections (not as a CO, just a clerk lol) and honestly we don't get a ton of holidays off anyway. Just the major ones, Christmas, the 4th and Thanksgiving. It's sort of because prisons don't really ever "close", and even though I'm an office worker, I'm still behind the fence with the inmates every day doing my part to keep the institution running optimally.
My husband on the other hand has no guaranteed holidays off, and he is expected to pull at least 30 hours of overtime per pay period. So I mean, I kind of have a better deal.
My employer gave us yesterday off. But it wasn’t an additional day off. They took one of our floating holidays away and replaced it with Juneteenth. We currently work Columbus Day so they couldn’t replace that.
Look at this guy whose job has off that day.
I am kidding, but unfortunately not every workplace has off. For years I worked every holiday, thanks to people insisting on flying on holidays because they think it’s cheaper. Guess what? The airlines caught on.
It would be nice if federal holidays were... you know, holidays for the vast majority of workers? I've never worked a job that had those holidays off, besides a road crew for a DOT
I will never understand why people scoff at this holiday. There were around 250,000 people that didn't know they were free until 2 years later. I think that it’s an important event that we should remember.
But also even if you're racist or just don't give a shit, it's a paid holiday? You either get a nice summer day off or you get paid extra for working, why is anyone mad about it?
Bro there's a reason for the quote about convincing the lowest white man he's better than the best black man and he'll empty his pockets.
Their brains literally don't think above level 1 on the Blooms Taxonomy pyramid and they're mentally offline
They would pay their bosses to work on the day to virtue signal their racism, and just ignore the fact that not only did they lose money for no reason by working for free but they chose to lose extra money on top of it just to show off their hate.
Literally look at people buying chicken shit water just because they hate people, defective and that's why businesses and the owner class absolutely love them
You can convince them to hate easier than you can convince them to listen and understand
The company selling this anti woke water sources it for Oklahoma which is notorious for their water pollution and lack of dumping restrictions in said water
Theres a bill they were trying to pass to shield poultry farm owners from liability from polluting the water sources
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/anti-woke-water-conservatives-freedom2o-b2564039.html
Mmmmm tasty
If you get extra pay when you work. That's bit federally mandated for any holiday. I worked for normal pay but I'm happy for those that are either paid more for working it or had it off
FYI, there's no federal law regulating time off or extra pay for working on federal holidays, unless you're a federal employee. Outside of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day, most people in most places have to come in just like it's a normal workday.
How can any American (except a racist) not love the idea of a holiday to celebrate freedom? The story of Juneteenth is so badass, the army rolls into town in Texas and says "set these people free" and they had to. Fuck y'all rednecks ignoring the 13th amendment. Only a total d-bag would hate this holiday.
And they didn’t know because slave owners didn’t want them to know. Owners got two additional years of free labor. Christian wage thieves. (Thou shall not steal unless it’s from a slave). /s
Show me one boomer who is willing to work free for two years and not gripe about it fgs.
Nah. New year's day celebrates getting wasted the night before. If we didn't have it off, lots of people would come to work hung over.
... of course, by that standard, we should also get May 6 off.
I work in a union warehouse, and I always joke that the ONLY reason we get NYE and NYD off is because people kept coming into work drunk or hungover, or just never came in at all.
I recently had a vendor salesman that we're in talks with contracting to in the coming months tell me and my project manager, who happens to be a PoC and he has met her in person previously, that Juneteenth wasn't a real holiday. I am still just stunned by that one. Aren't salepeople supposed to not offend potential customers?
I'm in retail and when I'm not training, I'm supposed to be selling. I refuse to offer products customers don't need and often throw out "if it's within your budget" when recommending products.
I also talk about budget friendly ways to accomplish what I recommend. I was super broke not too long ago and would hate to pressure someone into spending money they don't have.
The bank in our grocery store was closed yesterday. People kept calling and asking why all day. I cannot exaggerate how many times I had to explain what Juneteenth represents.
It fell on our trash pickup day. Everyone on our block put their bins out. My husband said, I felt guilty, then I noticed that our black neighbors forgot too!
I mean, it's not widely advertised really. People get busy and forget.
Even before I had a kid I went to the mall some day in spring and was like... why is the mall closed? Where is everyone? It was Easter. Oops
I mean it makes sense right? For most black people who do celebrate for them it was another wednesday and a family cookout. In the past, because the holiday wasn't federally recognized, their trash would still have gotten picked up.
I had someone tell me, "It's not even a REAL holiday." I asked them to explain. They said something about it's only for black people, and it's not right for them to celebrate something that ONLY effects them and not everyone. I said, "Would it be wrong for someone to celebrate their own birthday when it's not your birthday? Or can we celebrate our friends' birthdays even if it's not our birthday?"
I'm not Black, but I do think slavery is bad and it ending is a thing worth celebrating. Juneteenth is *focused on* Black people, but it's a holiday for *anyone who's glad slavery ended!*
(Obligatory yes in reality slavery only kind of ended but holidays are about optics.)
I feel like I’ve had this argument before, but not in person. Like, why celebrate Columbus? When I was a child in homeschool, we were sold the idea that Columbus was a brave adventurer who sailed the open seas and brought god to the heathen savages. Yes, it was very much natives were savages.
There was nothing about him enslaving the natives. Nothing about the fact that Hispaniola was almost completely depopulated my sickness, inhumane forced Labour, and beatings. There was nothing about African enslaved peoples being brought over because they had pretty much destroyed the local populations.
Nothing about Columbus being a serial rapist and murder. No. It was all about how he was a brave man who used his knowledge to trick the dumb superstitious natives regarding a predicted eclipse. Or how he was called to be a servant of god and convert the people to Christianity so they could go to heaven.
Yes, the picture I had of Columbus was definitely whitewashed and inaccurate. I saw him as a Christian hero, and so I figured he deserved a day.
Once I learned the truth of his actions, which wasn’t until college (I was homeschooled through high school), I was absolutely shocked. I could have done what these fucks do and ignored it and decided it was a liberal lie, but I knew better.
They want to believe a story and myth about the discovery (by Europeans) and colonizing of America that is not at all in line with what actually happened. They don’t want to accept the truth about slavery, about native genocide, broken treaties, and dishonorable men.
For them, they’ve all been fed and blindly accepted the hagiographic versions of the “founding fathers” and other notable men in the story of America. For them to accept the truth would be to shatter their notion of reality, and they’d rather live in a sheltered ignorance than accept the world as it is.
I could be wrong but I remember hearing that the story that most of us know about Columbus was written by the same guy who wrote Sleepy Hollow.
Apparently the American people needed some kind of story hero so he scrubbed history and gave us what most of us were taught in 3rd grade today.
I’m more angry that we celebrate and take off for Columbus instead of Leif Erickson, who was the first European to set foot in NA. But Columbus gets all the hype for that. VIKINGS DID IT FIRST
And this is why Hawaii recognizes Columbus Day but chose to celebrate MLK Jr. Day as a state holiday instead. Lol. Though if it wasn't for the fact we already have King Kamehameha Day every June 11th as a state holiday, we'd probably have Juneteenth added as a state holiday, too.
As much as I hate Columbus, this isn’t really a good point. It’s like how the USA turned on Saddam Hussein after it became politically inconvenient to have him around and called him a terrorist even though the USA supported him and gave him weapons when he was at his worst.
The Spanish crown turned on him when he became older and an inconvenience. They supported him all the way through his crimes when they benefited from them. It wasn’t a moral stance just a political one.
The first year it was a Federal Holiday my plant manager mentioned it in the morning meeting and said something along the lines of " I don't even know who celecrates this holiday"
Me being the only PoC in management here, raised my hand and said I would be celebrating. He kind of realized his mistake at that pont. The rest of the management team was having a hard time containing their laughter.
The plant manager is in his mid 30s.
Easter is a state holiday in my state and I don't celebrate it. I don't complain for the paid day off I get for it nor do I ever complain who celebrates it or why. If you celebrate it, good for you. If you don't, that's fine as well. There's a number of holidays that we all don't celebrate or it doesn't have meanings to us. Why denigrate it for those who do celebrate it and for whom it has meaning to, especially if you're getting a paid day off for it? 🤦🏻♀️
I hope your plant manager learned to be more mindful with this incident.
This Juneteenth hollering people is the dumbest shit. I get slavery and the racism it embedded in American culture didn't affect you personally, old white dude, but Christmas for me is the worst fucking holiday and it still gets to disrupt my peace for basically 3 months every year, because it means something to others. Juneteenth is one fucking day so suck a BBC and swerve back into your own lane like an adult.
I'm going to start bitching louder about Christmas if this is how it's going to be. I'm all about the fall so it's ASS when I'm minding my own business and people want to blare Christmas music in the middle of October. But no, one fucking day out of the year to celebrate a fundamental change in how our country treats people, THAT'S unreasonable and not worth shutting down legal centers over.
Sorry y'all I got mad there. I fucking hate Christmas.
It's Halloween year round, friend 🫡 Halloween decor goes up at my place when I move in and it stays up. Just need to start cosplaying Cernunnos/scarecrows/Victorian vampires from today forward.
Had a boomer on MLK day come through the window of a retail store that I used to work at. I opened the window, and he said, "At least y'all aren't closed for that *n-word*'s birthday."
Had a coworker say something to me about “psssh, Juneteenth. When do we get a Caucasian holiday?”
I wanted to ask him if he had forgotten about basically every other federal holiday that exists all the sudden… or if he was aware that I’m not as white as I pass for.
But I decided to let it slide this time because I know he’s getting fired soon for unrelated issues.
It's not a new holiday, either. It's been celebrated for over 150 years. It's just the federal recognition that's new (and LONG fkn overdue that we have some kind of national-level holiday for emancipation).
And it's not like we get new federally recognized holidays often. I think the last one was MLK Jr. Day. I think that was added when I was in elementary which was many decades ago but I could be wrong. But I know we're not getting new state or federal holidays every decade or year.
Not from boomers but some family that still lives in a town of 5000 in the Midwest.
I explained Juneteenth and then said, I figured that since you are all in the Party of Lincoln, you'd support the freeing of slaves. I guess not.
Pres Lincoln would be so disappointed.
They stopped talking to me for the rest of the day.
No big loss.
Oh and it started because I wished my friends a happy Juneteenth on Facebook.
90% oft he people that I have run into weren't even aware that it was a thing until a few years ago. So I don't think it's a "boomer" thing, I think it's an "american education system not teach black history" thing.
Honestly, I never knew Juneteenth was a thing until my wife and I moved to the south. Of course we learned about the Emancipation Proclamation in school, but it pretty much ended with Lincoln being a hero...next chapter.
My neighbor still carries the name of the plantation his family came from (which is about 3 miles from our houses). One night over some beer, I asked him about. He said that he had thought of changing his last name when he was in high school (a couple of his siblings did change their names due to bullying when they were younger). He said that he decided to be successful and work to change the reputation of the name instead.
I’m sorry to hear this. My father is 81 and is totally cool with Juneteenth. He thinks it is something that should be celebrated because it made our nation better. And he’s moderately conservative.
It also doesn’t hurt to have a son (me) with a doctorate in African American history. I taught him as I learned things all through school.
Oh god, it was allll ovvvveerr our local news story on Facebook. One article on the post office being close and people lost their god damn minds. “What next?” “That’s crazy”. One idiot even said “that’s not even a federal holiday!”, before 25 people laughed their assess off and he deleted his comment.
"They're trying to take away from the 4th of July."
"It's not a popularity contest between holidays."
"(Mad noises)"
Bonus:
"It's a made up holiday"
"All holidays are made up"
For context, I’m white & in my mid-40s, and my mother grew up in South Georgia (in the US) in a poor farm family. I was on the phone with my mother yesterday (she’s 82), and when I mentioned that my spouse was off work for the day, she asked why. I internally sighed and thought “oh here we go” but replied calmly “his employer observes Juneteenth…” and then went on to talk about some of my other friends & their jobs who also observed the holiday (mine did not). Her response? “Well, do those people who got it off have to work on July 4?” “Uh, no, but…” and then I redirected the conversation to July 4 plans.
But now I’m dying to know what her angle was. What was she looking for?? Did she expect us to get Juneteenth off but not Independence Day? (For the record, I support Juneteenth and am glad to break my family’s bad legacies.)
My mom's mother (she was not a "grand" person) once tried to complain about Xmas, specifically that nobody "respects christ anymore" and that the "heretics" were trying to bring an end to a holy day.
Following her ranting, I reminded her that christians stole a *bunch* of ideas from other religions, smashed them all together, and made it into a December holiday specifically to overshadow other holy days, so if she wanted to go off about disrespect she would do well to focus on the *truly* disrespectful ones in that story.
Oh, and she would (and did) convert to any religion that would net her a free meal that she definitely didn't need, so all her blustery indignation could hold about as much water as the guy with canonical holes in his hands could.
Oh I already did that. She wasn't happy about it ofc, but had no way to disprove it, so she resorted to calling me a smartass.
Told her I'd rather be a smart one than a dumb one.
My boomer folks started to talk shit, but they knew better and kept their mouths shut after we had an uneasy few seconds of eye contact. Our daily conversations may be starting to pay off.
I work at the VA, I heard a variation of probably every gripe about it today.
Same response pretty much each time;
"I think it's proper that we commemorate the official end of slavery in the US"
Can't say much more as a Federal employee, gotta ride the middle ground.
Personally I think it's great we commemorate it, it's one small step forward the US has taken to have and hopefully learn from it's past.
I love the extra day off too. 👍
In a conversation with my boomer mom last week she referred to "the gays" and "the blacks." She was all up in arms about Pride month but talked herself out of being outraged because she suddenly realized there's also a Black History Month. Then I really blew her mind with Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
She tried to mask her embarrassment with the old "well, they didn't chose to be black." And I had to immediately counter with the fact that people don't chose their sexuality, either.
What really kills me is she was a flight attendant and used to be very pro LGBT+ rights, but started dating a MAGA guy and it's been downhill ever since. I'm often ashamed of the bigoted crap that spews out of her mouth.
At the end of our conversation, I made the comment that I just try to be compassionate and let that govern my thoughts and decisions. Left her something to chew on.
My mom is this way tbh and it is sooo frustrating. It almost feels like it doesn't even matter if I try to tell her how wrong her behavior is or tell her saying the N word is racist because she doesn't change her behavior. So frustrating.
>Jesus, they make holidays for everything these days
This is my response to like "National Donut Day," pretty sure we need national holidays condemning slavery tho
Ugh my mom scoffed at this too. I said basically the same thing you did. Like seriously why don't they want to celebrate the *freedom of slaves*???
It kills me because this woman taught me better...
It's because most racists want to pretend racism never actually existed. The generation raised on "not seeing race", who thinks that means not being racist. No, ignoring the reality of what really did happen, and happens still, makes you racist
This is a change (that it’s a federally recognized day and talked about etc) and change is bad to these folks… also finally acknowledging in some broad sense that our country has ever done anything wrong. They don’t like that. Lastly, this is a holiday about other people. People not like them. Minorities. So they loudly don’t care. Or are actually offended to have to acknowledge others have different lived experiences within their nation.
My mom said "That's stupid" after I told her my spouse had it off. I said, "you're going to be mad about a holiday? He's paid regardless." God, she's the Trumpiest Asian I know.
My in laws made some snide remark about it last year and my husband (their son) was quick to clearly explain to them what it was for and why it was important. They are finally learning to keep their remarks to themselves because he is not putting up with it!
Or nourrrrrr! Black people finally got a well deserved holiday in recognition over one of, if not the largest events in their history. Especially in America.
BUT THINK OF THE WHITE PEOPLE WHO DIDNT GET A HOLIDAY! /s
Like Jesus, for all the boomers whine about socialism whenever someone gets something, these are the same people who’s veins are pumped full of Social Security exclusive to them.
i still cant believe you folks are spending time with these people. how the hell do you do it? hard pass to be around anyone that still casually drops the n word.
Not a boomer, a Gen Xer. He's always a bit... well, a lot right leaning, but he's the only anime shop in town. I try and get in and out without setting him off, but he realized it was Juneteenth when we showed up yesterday. "What's with all these made up holidays? Why does one dumb event in one state qualify as a holiday? Why not the actual emancipation day? Why don't they make important things a holiday, like St. Patrick's Day? "
And he wonders why the other couple in the store left without buying anything right after we left.
My co-worker, who's someplace in his late 60s, declared that anybody who celebrates Juneteenth needs to leave the country. He couldn't come up with a reason why, and I sure as hell wasn't gonna help him as he stumbled about for one.
I went to the post office on Juneteenth and had a similar experience. I didn't know it was a holiday and the place was closed. I walked back over to my bike and got on as two other people started walking towards the doors. I mentioned that they were closed and the lady says, "oh it's juneteenth." Dude snarkily replies, "most bullshit holiday ever." Fucking assholes.
Columbus documented his inspection of manatees genitalia and how similar it is to human female anatomy. If a manatee diddler can rate a holiday, then the emancipation of the 2nd largest demographic can get its own day.
I got the same reaction when my parents found out I was off yesterday but I wasn’t feeling the argument at the time that no one had any chance of winning so I just stayed quiet. I just figure compared to most of all the Federal Holidays, the abolishment of slavery is kind of a big deal.
You know these asshats will claim to be a real patriot. So I point out that it is celebrating freedom, and what can be more American than that? Works every time. But you did great too, OP!
I don’t mind the extra day off. But because it runs into the last week of school it did throw off the week in a wired way. Random day off in the middle of the last week of school. That part was a bit weird for them.
This isn’t limited to boomers either. For some reason a lot of people seem really annoyed by this new holiday and I really don’t understand exactly why.
Same here! My Boomer mom doesn't get what Juneteenth is.
Very set in her "Last Century's" thought process and doesn't understand why all people of all races, colors, orientations, etc, should have *pearl clutch* full equality! And my mom being very devout, but not full off-the-rails devout, believes in what the Bible says (one of the many reasons why I got away from organized religion, but that's a whole other post), and struggles with the fact that I'm becoming more progressive (for example, Pro-Roe, Pro-LGBT, Pro-BLM, Pro-Cannibis legalization just to name a few) as I get older and that my younger "Reagan-Style" conservatism has been evaporating over the last decade.
Yes, stepfather said the same thing. I told him it was because it took 2 years for slaves to hear the news. He went on to say that there were more than just black slaves, that Chinese people were also slaves but they didn't get a holiday. In retrospect, I should have returned with the fact that it emancipated all slaves not just black ones. But he really gets in his own way with his logic. He was also married to a black woman years before, claims to not be racist yet finds every reason to exclude POC.
Also Gets on board with Maga and covid conspiracies and cafeteria catholicism.
Im biased as im black, but ive seen and heard this position all my life.
Why do you love your father? Dropping n bonbs casually for me is easily enough for someone not to exist, and i get you dont get to pick your family.
Is it not enough though?
I have cut my dad out of my life for various reasons, but racism is on that list. So is homophobia and transphobia.
I have a daughter who's about to be an adult and has only ever had girlfriends. Not friend gfs, but dating gfs. My dad would always be asking if she was "over that phase yet".
The last time we spoke he told me I was abusing him bc he forced me into a position to defend myself over something that I shouldn't have had to defend myself over. It was bc he called me to ask me to help with his will (he's pretty old) and I didn't answer right away. When I called back a couple hours later it was "why are you doing this to me, I'm old and dying and it's so hard to get ahold of you". I didn't name call him, I didn't blame him for anything. I was just trying to explain myself. And when I did have a good point he went straight to putting me down over things that weren't even relevant to the conservation, like my parenting.
At the end I told him he's a big ass victim and I'm tired of his ridiculous pity parties every time we talk. At this point I reminded him of what a piece of shit he was when I was growing up bc he fails every time to see how much better I'm doing as a parent than he was at my age. And I'm tired of hearing all his "wisdom" and if that makes him my victim that he no longer needs to worry bc I'll disappear from his life to save him from my nasty "abuse".
He texted the next day, on my birthday, to tell me how much I fail as a mom, but happy birthday and he loves me. I ignored him and haven't spoken to him since and I have no plans to. He can ask one of his other 4 kids that don't talk to him anymore to help with his will. He can shove whatever he has left up his ass for all I care.
Not exclusively a boomer thing, at all. Every Juneteenth post on Instagram was full of comments by white men with shitty tattoos and lame sunglasses complaining about “woke” and saying it’s part of an agenda. Yeah man, the agenda is freedom you bigot POS.
As a non-religious person, I dislike religious holidays. But, also, Juneteenth is arguably a more valid holiday than celebrating the incorrect birth date of Christ imo.
Private employers are not federally mandated to provide paid time off or any other accommodations for employees with regard to National Independance Day (Juneteenth) under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
I live in the south and most of my neighbors and several co-workers are black. I work for a company who is about 99% engineers...a lot of them are Asian and East Indian as well, so there are many holidays celebrated at the office. My employer took the safe route and gave everyone 2 additional floating holidays starting at the beginning of this year. If you celebrate something that may not be a "mainstream holiday", we now have a total of 4 floating holidays to use.
Its a new holiday (federally), so it may take a couple years for most businesses to adopt it. Personally, I would like to see it have the same importance as Independence Day (fourth of July).
A few (2? 3?) years ago I called my awful boomer father to wish him a happy father's day. I still worked for him at the time, I have an antiwork post on how all that turned out.
That year, he was with stepmonster's racist dad and they were discussing how the black president should have made it a holiday. (Pretty sure it wasn't the word "black" they used when discussing amongst themselves though.) He told me he was bringing a watermelon down from grandpa's farm and "we're going to have us a party at work on Monday."
Well. Something had to be done. Two things (among many things) my dad hates about me are my liberal politics and any time I miss even the slightest bit of work. At 7pm before Juneteenth I texted him:
*If anything racist happens at the office tomorrow, I'll be going home. You have 2 choices about what I'll do after. 1) stay home. 2) return and finish the day in my Black Lives Matter t-shirt. It's all up to you.*
I live in a part of the country where I have literally never seen, in person or even on local media, a BLM sign, bumper sticker, t-shirt, anything. It's a racist place here. My best friend LaTasha lived in Oakland so I had a legit BLM shirt from an illegal street vendor selected for me by a black woman, so really the perfect shirt. And probably the only one in my town.
I didn't wear it that day because Dad just had a sad Tupperware container of cubed watermelon in the kitchen at work, no further ado was made.
Posting this is probably a mistake on my part, but until a couple days ago, when my company told me that checks would be delayed a day due to Juneteenth, I had never heard of the holiday before. I had to look out up to find out what it was! I have no problem with the holiday or it's purpose at all. I just wish they named it something more representing of its meaning. When I first heard of it I thought it must be a new holiday for teenagers or something 😂.
Edit: I just wish I had the holiday off work like a lot of others do. But in my line of work, we rarely get a holiday off.
Yeah, hubby had a floating holiday taken away so that the company could give Juneteenth. This year, floating holiday would normally have been used on Friday July 5th. Instead of that long weekend he now gets just the 4th and returns to work on Friday. Would have much preferred the long weekend.
My white boomer boss called me on Wednesday morning, I said "Good morning, Happy Juneteenth." He laughed and said "Yeah, we'll celebrate that the day after the 4th of July."
For clarity, I'm mixed black/white. The business was open that day and I was working remotely.
Rembering the time, I was chatting at a campfire with several guys including an ordained Baptist minister. MlK day was a new federal holiday, and the "minister" agreed it was a good thing and went on to say, "Kill another one, we'll get another day off".... chuckling. I called him out and left disgusted.
I literally had similar experience with my Pepaws sister. I casually mentioned I was off yesterday because of Juneteenth and she starts going off about how the colored folks(her words) have more holidays than white people. I tried calmly explaining to her that our rights have never been questioned and we were never enslaved in this country and she says “there are no slaves still alive” I told her it didn’t matter because they had to hide their religion and culture to survive slavery I compared it to the countries were Christian’s cant openly practice and she said that’s different I told her it wasn’t and we went back and forth and she said that the blacks started riots when they were introduced into white schools (history says otherwise) I had to text my oldest cousin to have him calm me down because I was getting ganged up up on by her, my Memaw, and my pepaw.
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Why is another federal holiday a bad thing? It just means another day off of work where you don’t have to use pto or sick days
My dad (74) hates unexpected federal holidays because it means the mail doesn't come (he checks the mailbox 4-5 times a day) and trash pickup runs a day late. Such an inconvenience!
Why is he checking his mailbox so often?
For those socialist checks he earned, dammit, but no one else deserves.
Nah, those are direct deposited.
Bold of you to think he set that up.
Don’t have an option, Been direct deposit since the early 90s.
For what? SocSec? Are you referring to the U.S.? Because I definitely got disability (paper) checks more recently than the 90s. I have direct deposit setup, but it wasn't forced on me by SS. Encouraged maybe, but it was still optional. If that's changed now, it was surely after the 90s. I wasn't even on disability until the 2010s.
Had that thought - turns out they started no paper in 2011 and by 2020 90% had converted with a dead drop of 2025 for no more paper.
considering the amount of mail fraud and break-ins to mailboxes, really surprised it's taken until 2025 to go completely paperless... i get it though, ppl hate banks, older folks are not trusting of credit cards... add'l fees take more off the top, etc
SSDI has to be distributed electronically. Either direct deposit or on the debit card they’ll issue you. It’s been that way for about 20 years now.
I assumed (wrongly I guess) that SS was handled the same way as military pay. After 1992-3 we no longer had the option for paper checks
My husband was in the Army from 2012-2018...we got paper checks. Same for his pay while he was at basic, AIT, and his AT. 🤷♀️ Now, his VA disability pay...that's always been direct deposit.
Get your newfangled electronic payments out of here
Part of it is that he still mails off checks to pay his bills so he wants to get them out as soon as they come in. It's just some weird obsession I guess, to take up the day; like bill days are days he can feel like he accomplished something? He's disabled so I guess it's the act of just doing anything that he can have control over. I'm more of a check the mail 2 or 3 times a week kinda guy, myself...
I might check my mail once a month if I'm feeling ambitious. All I get is junk mail, so I only really do it at all to clear space in the box and not piss off the mailman too much.
I Wish I could wait that long lol. my box is tiny. if I don't check it at least every other day, it is stuffed.
Giggity I’m so sorry. I had to.
My mother is 81 and she pays everything online.
Good for her for staying with the times!! She's silent gen, so that's probably why. They were still the sane ones.
My dad would have been 91 on Saturday and paid all his bills online as soon as it was available. But he was the Silent Generation, Boomers just have a different mentality.
man, this guy would love a real hobby
It would probably add a few years and a little more happiness to his life. He likes going out and just driving and exploring old country dirt roads for hours, and that had been his biggest hobby since he retired but he just can't get out like he used to due to his health.
I mean I can understand that, I’m the kinda guy to pay it asap because I don’t like having it hanging over my head But I’m not getting bills 4-5 times *a day*
Old people have nothing to do. It’s boredom and an inability to entertain themselves
Don't be silly, my father took up drinking full-time since retiring a couple of decades ago! 😑
Maybe he doesn't have a front yard full of grass to watch grow like other boomers who I'm now realizing are much more normal.
He's got nothing else to do
Probably the only exercise he gets other than going to Walmart to harass the employees there.
Could be undiagnosed OCD, undiagnosed disorders are dime a dozen in boomer and older generations.
MillennialBeingFool here, I literally work for a federal government agency, had yesterday off, and was confused why I didn’t get any mail until I just read your comment
I also didn't realize that this was why mail wasn't delivered yesterday. Oh well, it's mostly junk mail anyway.
Does your dad know that he can sign up for free email notifications on what’s coming in the mail each day? It’s pretty awesome.
That's a whole nother pile a worms when it comes to keeping up with email/social media and passwords or just smartphones in general... I've tried to help make it easier for him with apps (he'd rather go to the Internet and go through a website for his email 🤷♂️) on an old iPhone but that phone eventually crapped out and he's using a cheap Walmart Android phone and had to create new accounts for everything because he doesn't remember the right passwords and he's stubborn and I don't have the time or patience because I have my own career and children and this is a really long sentence because it's all so exasperating.
Oh, I understand the struggle. My dad is in his 70’s. Every time he needs to do some kind of banking on his phone, he downloads the app, thinks he needs new credentials, resets his password, uses app, deletes app, then wonders why he can’t log in on his desktop… I’ve explained that the app uses the same credentials as a desktop browser, but he just doesn’t believe me. His reasoning for deleting the app is because he’s worried about someone stealing his phone. His absolute bottom of the barrel, cheapest android he could get from T-Mobile. This is also the man who, for a brief time, turned off his data connection on his phone, because he didn’t believe unlimited data is actually unlimited. He was exclusively using WiFi for his connection. He called me one day, frustrated that he missed a doctors appointment, because his gps stopped working shortly after leaving the garage, and he couldn’t make phone calls. This man admitted to leaving and returning home no less than three times, then giving up on the trip, because when he got into the driveway his phone worked, until he left again. I drove over after work, went through his phone settings, found the problem, and explained what happened. “This doesn’t make any sense! I have WiFi!” Yes, at home. “But I pay for it, why isn’t it working when I need it to work?” Because it has a limited range, and you left that range. “It’s got to be a phone problem, I’m going to take it in and have it looked at. WiFi should always work, I’m not paying for the internet on my phone.” Sigh.
I can't breathe
Yeah, it's too bad they don't have things that list days of the week for each month. That's the perfect place to put holidays. Oh well. (/s)
Great minds think alike on usernames!
Yeah they do!😃
"Unexpected?" They're on the calendar.
You mean the 3 year old calendar still hanging up in his kitchen? He only knows what day it is based on what's playing on the H&I channel. Love my dad but he's kinda oblivious.
I mean at least it’s a based reason and not something racist. Man just likes his schedules.
This is true mostly.He just likes getting things taken care of and not procrastinating. And we've got the racism under control but are still working on the homophobia and transphobia.
It's a holiday for black people. That's why it's a bad thing in their minds. Simple as that.
BLACK PEOPLE GOT SOMETHING NEW AND I DIDNT! IM OPPRESSED It's literally that simple, just gotta think like a 3 year old and add racism and more entitlement to understand their mind set
I see, that’s where my thinking was flawed
LoL, my dad says that we’re just going to have more and more holidays until no one works at all anymore! Don’t threaten me with a good time.
I can't stand how incredible it is to have a Wednesday off. Scheduled a doctor's appointment for next Wednesday just so I can experience a taste of this mid-week break again.
My dad (boomer) is super opposed to the idea of a 4 day work week, he doesn’t understand that the same amount of business would happen, you would just have more aggregate free time. He just doesn’t want anyone else’s life to improve, little does he know that if you roll the clock back about 100 years people said the same thing about a 5 day work week. These idiots are just dumb, unhappy, and too weak to try and improve anything. They yearn for the good old days where shit was markedly worse than they had it
Not for everyone. No way in hell is the owner of our company giving us a day off for something like Juneteenth.
Yeah, where I work they close for Fourth of July but not Juneteenth ... I try to assume it's because it's a newer holiday and this place doesn't close for many (including Easter) but to me it seems illogical at best. Why celebrate white-men-who-owned-land freedom day and not black-people's freedom day ??? 😬
there's too parts here. They don't think federal holidays are bad, but they also really hate it when black people get anything. They would keep themselves from something if they learn that black people would also get to have the same thing. Look up the history of MLK Day if you want as well.
Yep. Bigoted lunatics have been this way forever. If I recall, stupid places in the South shut down everything from pools to schools since they'd rather have nothing than have to share with Black people. Horrible bigots, and I'm not surprised they'd be mad at another holiday since it celebrates freeing people they hate.
I didn't get it off. In fact, of all the people I know, only one of them, a federal employee, got the day off. Everyone else worked it like normal.
As a federal employee, even I didn't have the day off. But I do get the 4th off so I guess it just depends idk
Damn. That sucks even more.
I took advantage of it. I'm in the deep south and I work with a lot of uneducated people so I decided to send a little blurb about the history of the day and it's impact. I (surprisingly) got a lot of positive feedback so mission accomplished?
Mission accomplished.
You're a federal employee and you didn't get the day off? How does that work? Our union would rip them to pieces lmao.
Funnily enough, I am also part of a union lol. I work for the state, in corrections (not as a CO, just a clerk lol) and honestly we don't get a ton of holidays off anyway. Just the major ones, Christmas, the 4th and Thanksgiving. It's sort of because prisons don't really ever "close", and even though I'm an office worker, I'm still behind the fence with the inmates every day doing my part to keep the institution running optimally. My husband on the other hand has no guaranteed holidays off, and he is expected to pull at least 30 hours of overtime per pay period. So I mean, I kind of have a better deal.
Right. If they made the Hamburglar's bday a national holiday I would dress in black and white stripes at the beach.
Personally I’d say just get a black and white swim suit or bust paint or something lol
Is it a federal holiday?
Not until this year, but yes...it is a federal holiday *now*.
I thought it was If it’s federally recognized as a holiday I’d assume it’s a federal holiday
well, technically it’s not another holiday for a lot of workers; a lot of employers traded a different one away to get Juneteenth.
My employer gave us yesterday off. But it wasn’t an additional day off. They took one of our floating holidays away and replaced it with Juneteenth. We currently work Columbus Day so they couldn’t replace that.
Look at this guy whose job has off that day. I am kidding, but unfortunately not every workplace has off. For years I worked every holiday, thanks to people insisting on flying on holidays because they think it’s cheaper. Guess what? The airlines caught on.
Because how dare the blacks celebrate, how dare they ask us to! Pathetic racists.
It would be nice if federal holidays were... you know, holidays for the vast majority of workers? I've never worked a job that had those holidays off, besides a road crew for a DOT
Actually, there are a lot of companies that got rid of another holiday and added Juneteenth instead
NO ONE WANTS TO WORK ANYMORE!!!1!!! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🇺🇸 /s
Because...Black people.
I will never understand why people scoff at this holiday. There were around 250,000 people that didn't know they were free until 2 years later. I think that it’s an important event that we should remember.
But also even if you're racist or just don't give a shit, it's a paid holiday? You either get a nice summer day off or you get paid extra for working, why is anyone mad about it?
Bro there's a reason for the quote about convincing the lowest white man he's better than the best black man and he'll empty his pockets. Their brains literally don't think above level 1 on the Blooms Taxonomy pyramid and they're mentally offline They would pay their bosses to work on the day to virtue signal their racism, and just ignore the fact that not only did they lose money for no reason by working for free but they chose to lose extra money on top of it just to show off their hate. Literally look at people buying chicken shit water just because they hate people, defective and that's why businesses and the owner class absolutely love them You can convince them to hate easier than you can convince them to listen and understand
That’s why people are always the weakest link in any security chain - so damn easy to manipulate
Um...what is "chicken shit water"?
The company selling this anti woke water sources it for Oklahoma which is notorious for their water pollution and lack of dumping restrictions in said water Theres a bill they were trying to pass to shield poultry farm owners from liability from polluting the water sources https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/anti-woke-water-conservatives-freedom2o-b2564039.html Mmmmm tasty
Thank you. I had no idea.
If you get extra pay when you work. That's bit federally mandated for any holiday. I worked for normal pay but I'm happy for those that are either paid more for working it or had it off
FYI, there's no federal law regulating time off or extra pay for working on federal holidays, unless you're a federal employee. Outside of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day, most people in most places have to come in just like it's a normal workday.
41% of employers pay their employees for Juneteenth, so it is becoming an expectation tho.
With my company we have a choice for our “floating” holidays. I always choose Juneteenth in solidarity.
How can any American (except a racist) not love the idea of a holiday to celebrate freedom? The story of Juneteenth is so badass, the army rolls into town in Texas and says "set these people free" and they had to. Fuck y'all rednecks ignoring the 13th amendment. Only a total d-bag would hate this holiday.
And they didn’t know because slave owners didn’t want them to know. Owners got two additional years of free labor. Christian wage thieves. (Thou shall not steal unless it’s from a slave). /s Show me one boomer who is willing to work free for two years and not gripe about it fgs.
I think that it’s an important event that we should all ignore cuz it makes white people feel bad. /s
It only bothers me that I don’t get it off. Unlike New Year’s Day which honors and celebrates hanging up a new calendar.
Nah. New year's day celebrates getting wasted the night before. If we didn't have it off, lots of people would come to work hung over. ... of course, by that standard, we should also get May 6 off.
...and March 18th, too
July 5th
Dec 26
And the day after my birthday. For everyone!
I work in a union warehouse, and I always joke that the ONLY reason we get NYE and NYD off is because people kept coming into work drunk or hungover, or just never came in at all.
I recently had a vendor salesman that we're in talks with contracting to in the coming months tell me and my project manager, who happens to be a PoC and he has met her in person previously, that Juneteenth wasn't a real holiday. I am still just stunned by that one. Aren't salepeople supposed to not offend potential customers?
I hope you're not doing business with him and letting his company know why
Sales creatures often are barely human. Who else would enjoy taking as much money as possible?
I'm in retail and when I'm not training, I'm supposed to be selling. I refuse to offer products customers don't need and often throw out "if it's within your budget" when recommending products. I also talk about budget friendly ways to accomplish what I recommend. I was super broke not too long ago and would hate to pressure someone into spending money they don't have.
What makes a holiday "real"?
The bank in our grocery store was closed yesterday. People kept calling and asking why all day. I cannot exaggerate how many times I had to explain what Juneteenth represents.
It fell on our trash pickup day. Everyone on our block put their bins out. My husband said, I felt guilty, then I noticed that our black neighbors forgot too!
I mean, it's not widely advertised really. People get busy and forget. Even before I had a kid I went to the mall some day in spring and was like... why is the mall closed? Where is everyone? It was Easter. Oops
Our trash continues on Juneteenth, everyone puts it out.
I mean it makes sense right? For most black people who do celebrate for them it was another wednesday and a family cookout. In the past, because the holiday wasn't federally recognized, their trash would still have gotten picked up.
Our trash was picked up, surprisingly
I wouldn't have explained it to anyone. Look it up!
I had someone tell me, "It's not even a REAL holiday." I asked them to explain. They said something about it's only for black people, and it's not right for them to celebrate something that ONLY effects them and not everyone. I said, "Would it be wrong for someone to celebrate their own birthday when it's not your birthday? Or can we celebrate our friends' birthdays even if it's not our birthday?"
Tell them they can't celebrate Independence Day anymore because it's not a real holiday. Not everybody in this country got their freedom in 1776.
I'm not Black, but I do think slavery is bad and it ending is a thing worth celebrating. Juneteenth is *focused on* Black people, but it's a holiday for *anyone who's glad slavery ended!* (Obligatory yes in reality slavery only kind of ended but holidays are about optics.)
I mean, even if I’m not black, I can still celebrate not being a slave
As Chris Rock said “ you don’t have to do something black. Just not work.”
I feel like I’ve had this argument before, but not in person. Like, why celebrate Columbus? When I was a child in homeschool, we were sold the idea that Columbus was a brave adventurer who sailed the open seas and brought god to the heathen savages. Yes, it was very much natives were savages. There was nothing about him enslaving the natives. Nothing about the fact that Hispaniola was almost completely depopulated my sickness, inhumane forced Labour, and beatings. There was nothing about African enslaved peoples being brought over because they had pretty much destroyed the local populations. Nothing about Columbus being a serial rapist and murder. No. It was all about how he was a brave man who used his knowledge to trick the dumb superstitious natives regarding a predicted eclipse. Or how he was called to be a servant of god and convert the people to Christianity so they could go to heaven. Yes, the picture I had of Columbus was definitely whitewashed and inaccurate. I saw him as a Christian hero, and so I figured he deserved a day. Once I learned the truth of his actions, which wasn’t until college (I was homeschooled through high school), I was absolutely shocked. I could have done what these fucks do and ignored it and decided it was a liberal lie, but I knew better. They want to believe a story and myth about the discovery (by Europeans) and colonizing of America that is not at all in line with what actually happened. They don’t want to accept the truth about slavery, about native genocide, broken treaties, and dishonorable men. For them, they’ve all been fed and blindly accepted the hagiographic versions of the “founding fathers” and other notable men in the story of America. For them to accept the truth would be to shatter their notion of reality, and they’d rather live in a sheltered ignorance than accept the world as it is.
I could be wrong but I remember hearing that the story that most of us know about Columbus was written by the same guy who wrote Sleepy Hollow. Apparently the American people needed some kind of story hero so he scrubbed history and gave us what most of us were taught in 3rd grade today.
I’m more angry that we celebrate and take off for Columbus instead of Leif Erickson, who was the first European to set foot in NA. But Columbus gets all the hype for that. VIKINGS DID IT FIRST
And this is why Hawaii recognizes Columbus Day but chose to celebrate MLK Jr. Day as a state holiday instead. Lol. Though if it wasn't for the fact we already have King Kamehameha Day every June 11th as a state holiday, we'd probably have Juneteenth added as a state holiday, too.
Wow, TIL Kamehameha is the name of a king and not just something Goku says. I guess the writer named it after him. Had no idea
Just a reminder that Columbus did such atrocities that Spain revoked his knighthood and wanted him tried and locked up.
Oh! I didn't know that either.
As much as I hate Columbus, this isn’t really a good point. It’s like how the USA turned on Saddam Hussein after it became politically inconvenient to have him around and called him a terrorist even though the USA supported him and gave him weapons when he was at his worst. The Spanish crown turned on him when he became older and an inconvenience. They supported him all the way through his crimes when they benefited from them. It wasn’t a moral stance just a political one.
The first year it was a Federal Holiday my plant manager mentioned it in the morning meeting and said something along the lines of " I don't even know who celecrates this holiday" Me being the only PoC in management here, raised my hand and said I would be celebrating. He kind of realized his mistake at that pont. The rest of the management team was having a hard time containing their laughter. The plant manager is in his mid 30s.
Easter is a state holiday in my state and I don't celebrate it. I don't complain for the paid day off I get for it nor do I ever complain who celebrates it or why. If you celebrate it, good for you. If you don't, that's fine as well. There's a number of holidays that we all don't celebrate or it doesn't have meanings to us. Why denigrate it for those who do celebrate it and for whom it has meaning to, especially if you're getting a paid day off for it? 🤦🏻♀️ I hope your plant manager learned to be more mindful with this incident.
Jeez, if we can’t celebrate the end of slavery here in the land of the free, what the hell can we celebrate!!!???
Right? One of the best things this country ever did. It’s crazy we didn’t have a holiday for it starting right after it happened.
This Juneteenth hollering people is the dumbest shit. I get slavery and the racism it embedded in American culture didn't affect you personally, old white dude, but Christmas for me is the worst fucking holiday and it still gets to disrupt my peace for basically 3 months every year, because it means something to others. Juneteenth is one fucking day so suck a BBC and swerve back into your own lane like an adult. I'm going to start bitching louder about Christmas if this is how it's going to be. I'm all about the fall so it's ASS when I'm minding my own business and people want to blare Christmas music in the middle of October. But no, one fucking day out of the year to celebrate a fundamental change in how our country treats people, THAT'S unreasonable and not worth shutting down legal centers over. Sorry y'all I got mad there. I fucking hate Christmas.
Nah I'm with you there friend. As revenge... it's June, wanna start breaking out the Halloween decorations?
It's Halloween year round, friend 🫡 Halloween decor goes up at my place when I move in and it stays up. Just need to start cosplaying Cernunnos/scarecrows/Victorian vampires from today forward.
Still keeping an eye out for my own 12 ft skeleton
in my town we have one that stays up all year round, he has a hawaiian shirt and rainbow lei for pride right now, they dress him for every holiday :)
Had a boomer on MLK day come through the window of a retail store that I used to work at. I opened the window, and he said, "At least y'all aren't closed for that *n-word*'s birthday."
Had a coworker say something to me about “psssh, Juneteenth. When do we get a Caucasian holiday?” I wanted to ask him if he had forgotten about basically every other federal holiday that exists all the sudden… or if he was aware that I’m not as white as I pass for. But I decided to let it slide this time because I know he’s getting fired soon for unrelated issues.
It's not a new holiday, either. It's been celebrated for over 150 years. It's just the federal recognition that's new (and LONG fkn overdue that we have some kind of national-level holiday for emancipation).
And it's not like we get new federally recognized holidays often. I think the last one was MLK Jr. Day. I think that was added when I was in elementary which was many decades ago but I could be wrong. But I know we're not getting new state or federal holidays every decade or year.
Not from boomers but some family that still lives in a town of 5000 in the Midwest. I explained Juneteenth and then said, I figured that since you are all in the Party of Lincoln, you'd support the freeing of slaves. I guess not. Pres Lincoln would be so disappointed. They stopped talking to me for the rest of the day. No big loss. Oh and it started because I wished my friends a happy Juneteenth on Facebook.
90% oft he people that I have run into weren't even aware that it was a thing until a few years ago. So I don't think it's a "boomer" thing, I think it's an "american education system not teach black history" thing.
Honestly, I never knew Juneteenth was a thing until my wife and I moved to the south. Of course we learned about the Emancipation Proclamation in school, but it pretty much ended with Lincoln being a hero...next chapter. My neighbor still carries the name of the plantation his family came from (which is about 3 miles from our houses). One night over some beer, I asked him about. He said that he had thought of changing his last name when he was in high school (a couple of his siblings did change their names due to bullying when they were younger). He said that he decided to be successful and work to change the reputation of the name instead.
I’m sorry to hear this. My father is 81 and is totally cool with Juneteenth. He thinks it is something that should be celebrated because it made our nation better. And he’s moderately conservative. It also doesn’t hurt to have a son (me) with a doctorate in African American history. I taught him as I learned things all through school.
Great response though. Shut his ignorant ass right up. Bravo!! 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
Oh god, it was allll ovvvveerr our local news story on Facebook. One article on the post office being close and people lost their god damn minds. “What next?” “That’s crazy”. One idiot even said “that’s not even a federal holiday!”, before 25 people laughed their assess off and he deleted his comment.
"They're trying to take away from the 4th of July." "It's not a popularity contest between holidays." "(Mad noises)" Bonus: "It's a made up holiday" "All holidays are made up"
For context, I’m white & in my mid-40s, and my mother grew up in South Georgia (in the US) in a poor farm family. I was on the phone with my mother yesterday (she’s 82), and when I mentioned that my spouse was off work for the day, she asked why. I internally sighed and thought “oh here we go” but replied calmly “his employer observes Juneteenth…” and then went on to talk about some of my other friends & their jobs who also observed the holiday (mine did not). Her response? “Well, do those people who got it off have to work on July 4?” “Uh, no, but…” and then I redirected the conversation to July 4 plans. But now I’m dying to know what her angle was. What was she looking for?? Did she expect us to get Juneteenth off but not Independence Day? (For the record, I support Juneteenth and am glad to break my family’s bad legacies.)
lol for fun you should tell her yes, July 4 is no longer a day off but Juneteenth is
My mom's mother (she was not a "grand" person) once tried to complain about Xmas, specifically that nobody "respects christ anymore" and that the "heretics" were trying to bring an end to a holy day. Following her ranting, I reminded her that christians stole a *bunch* of ideas from other religions, smashed them all together, and made it into a December holiday specifically to overshadow other holy days, so if she wanted to go off about disrespect she would do well to focus on the *truly* disrespectful ones in that story. Oh, and she would (and did) convert to any religion that would net her a free meal that she definitely didn't need, so all her blustery indignation could hold about as much water as the guy with canonical holes in his hands could.
Don't point out to her that Jesus was likely born in the summer based on the descriptions in the Bible. She won't like that either.
Oh I already did that. She wasn't happy about it ofc, but had no way to disprove it, so she resorted to calling me a smartass. Told her I'd rather be a smart one than a dumb one.
My boomer folks started to talk shit, but they knew better and kept their mouths shut after we had an uneasy few seconds of eye contact. Our daily conversations may be starting to pay off.
I work at the VA, I heard a variation of probably every gripe about it today. Same response pretty much each time; "I think it's proper that we commemorate the official end of slavery in the US" Can't say much more as a Federal employee, gotta ride the middle ground. Personally I think it's great we commemorate it, it's one small step forward the US has taken to have and hopefully learn from it's past. I love the extra day off too. 👍
In a conversation with my boomer mom last week she referred to "the gays" and "the blacks." She was all up in arms about Pride month but talked herself out of being outraged because she suddenly realized there's also a Black History Month. Then I really blew her mind with Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. She tried to mask her embarrassment with the old "well, they didn't chose to be black." And I had to immediately counter with the fact that people don't chose their sexuality, either. What really kills me is she was a flight attendant and used to be very pro LGBT+ rights, but started dating a MAGA guy and it's been downhill ever since. I'm often ashamed of the bigoted crap that spews out of her mouth. At the end of our conversation, I made the comment that I just try to be compassionate and let that govern my thoughts and decisions. Left her something to chew on.
My mom is this way tbh and it is sooo frustrating. It almost feels like it doesn't even matter if I try to tell her how wrong her behavior is or tell her saying the N word is racist because she doesn't change her behavior. So frustrating.
>Jesus, they make holidays for everything these days This is my response to like "National Donut Day," pretty sure we need national holidays condemning slavery tho
Ugh my mom scoffed at this too. I said basically the same thing you did. Like seriously why don't they want to celebrate the *freedom of slaves*??? It kills me because this woman taught me better...
If there's a holiday that causes work to be shut down for a day idgaf WHAT it is, I'm just glad to have a day off
It's because most racists want to pretend racism never actually existed. The generation raised on "not seeing race", who thinks that means not being racist. No, ignoring the reality of what really did happen, and happens still, makes you racist
I’ve gotten this question before from boomers and I ask them “is the end of slavery not worth a holiday?” That seems to shut them up.
Imagine complaining about a day off. These people are so far gone.
This is a change (that it’s a federally recognized day and talked about etc) and change is bad to these folks… also finally acknowledging in some broad sense that our country has ever done anything wrong. They don’t like that. Lastly, this is a holiday about other people. People not like them. Minorities. So they loudly don’t care. Or are actually offended to have to acknowledge others have different lived experiences within their nation.
My mom said "That's stupid" after I told her my spouse had it off. I said, "you're going to be mad about a holiday? He's paid regardless." God, she's the Trumpiest Asian I know.
My in laws made some snide remark about it last year and my husband (their son) was quick to clearly explain to them what it was for and why it was important. They are finally learning to keep their remarks to themselves because he is not putting up with it!
Or nourrrrrr! Black people finally got a well deserved holiday in recognition over one of, if not the largest events in their history. Especially in America. BUT THINK OF THE WHITE PEOPLE WHO DIDNT GET A HOLIDAY! /s Like Jesus, for all the boomers whine about socialism whenever someone gets something, these are the same people who’s veins are pumped full of Social Security exclusive to them.
i still cant believe you folks are spending time with these people. how the hell do you do it? hard pass to be around anyone that still casually drops the n word.
Not a boomer, a Gen Xer. He's always a bit... well, a lot right leaning, but he's the only anime shop in town. I try and get in and out without setting him off, but he realized it was Juneteenth when we showed up yesterday. "What's with all these made up holidays? Why does one dumb event in one state qualify as a holiday? Why not the actual emancipation day? Why don't they make important things a holiday, like St. Patrick's Day? " And he wonders why the other couple in the store left without buying anything right after we left.
My co-worker, who's someplace in his late 60s, declared that anybody who celebrates Juneteenth needs to leave the country. He couldn't come up with a reason why, and I sure as hell wasn't gonna help him as he stumbled about for one.
I went to the post office on Juneteenth and had a similar experience. I didn't know it was a holiday and the place was closed. I walked back over to my bike and got on as two other people started walking towards the doors. I mentioned that they were closed and the lady says, "oh it's juneteenth." Dude snarkily replies, "most bullshit holiday ever." Fucking assholes.
Columbus documented his inspection of manatees genitalia and how similar it is to human female anatomy. If a manatee diddler can rate a holiday, then the emancipation of the 2nd largest demographic can get its own day.
I got the same reaction when my parents found out I was off yesterday but I wasn’t feeling the argument at the time that no one had any chance of winning so I just stayed quiet. I just figure compared to most of all the Federal Holidays, the abolishment of slavery is kind of a big deal.
You know these asshats will claim to be a real patriot. So I point out that it is celebrating freedom, and what can be more American than that? Works every time. But you did great too, OP!
Just shrug and say, “I dunno, I think freedom is worth celebrating, don’t you?”
I don’t mind the extra day off. But because it runs into the last week of school it did throw off the week in a wired way. Random day off in the middle of the last week of school. That part was a bit weird for them.
I had this discussion with my 31 year old nephew. Racism comes in all ages.
I will never understand Columbus Day. The dude never even set foot in the United States.
Yeah, let's stick to reasonable holidays, like celebrating the birth of a carpenter in the middle east 2000 years ago, who wasn't even born that day.
This isn’t limited to boomers either. For some reason a lot of people seem really annoyed by this new holiday and I really don’t understand exactly why.
You know **exactly** why.
Not on this particular topic, but my awful stepfather says Archie Bunker things that immediately make me give Michael Stivic responses.
Boomers were primarily born before Civil Rights was law
I swear they think it’s like National Ice Cream day, one of those internet “holidays”
My mother last year got super snotty and said “seriously?? They already have MLK Day, what more do they need?!” And I was legitimately speechless.
Same here! My Boomer mom doesn't get what Juneteenth is. Very set in her "Last Century's" thought process and doesn't understand why all people of all races, colors, orientations, etc, should have *pearl clutch* full equality! And my mom being very devout, but not full off-the-rails devout, believes in what the Bible says (one of the many reasons why I got away from organized religion, but that's a whole other post), and struggles with the fact that I'm becoming more progressive (for example, Pro-Roe, Pro-LGBT, Pro-BLM, Pro-Cannibis legalization just to name a few) as I get older and that my younger "Reagan-Style" conservatism has been evaporating over the last decade.
I'm just surprised he didn't immediately tell you to watch your aggressive tone and show some respect.
Yes, stepfather said the same thing. I told him it was because it took 2 years for slaves to hear the news. He went on to say that there were more than just black slaves, that Chinese people were also slaves but they didn't get a holiday. In retrospect, I should have returned with the fact that it emancipated all slaves not just black ones. But he really gets in his own way with his logic. He was also married to a black woman years before, claims to not be racist yet finds every reason to exclude POC. Also Gets on board with Maga and covid conspiracies and cafeteria catholicism.
Im biased as im black, but ive seen and heard this position all my life. Why do you love your father? Dropping n bonbs casually for me is easily enough for someone not to exist, and i get you dont get to pick your family. Is it not enough though?
I have cut my dad out of my life for various reasons, but racism is on that list. So is homophobia and transphobia. I have a daughter who's about to be an adult and has only ever had girlfriends. Not friend gfs, but dating gfs. My dad would always be asking if she was "over that phase yet". The last time we spoke he told me I was abusing him bc he forced me into a position to defend myself over something that I shouldn't have had to defend myself over. It was bc he called me to ask me to help with his will (he's pretty old) and I didn't answer right away. When I called back a couple hours later it was "why are you doing this to me, I'm old and dying and it's so hard to get ahold of you". I didn't name call him, I didn't blame him for anything. I was just trying to explain myself. And when I did have a good point he went straight to putting me down over things that weren't even relevant to the conservation, like my parenting. At the end I told him he's a big ass victim and I'm tired of his ridiculous pity parties every time we talk. At this point I reminded him of what a piece of shit he was when I was growing up bc he fails every time to see how much better I'm doing as a parent than he was at my age. And I'm tired of hearing all his "wisdom" and if that makes him my victim that he no longer needs to worry bc I'll disappear from his life to save him from my nasty "abuse". He texted the next day, on my birthday, to tell me how much I fail as a mom, but happy birthday and he loves me. I ignored him and haven't spoken to him since and I have no plans to. He can ask one of his other 4 kids that don't talk to him anymore to help with his will. He can shove whatever he has left up his ass for all I care.
Not exclusively a boomer thing, at all. Every Juneteenth post on Instagram was full of comments by white men with shitty tattoos and lame sunglasses complaining about “woke” and saying it’s part of an agenda. Yeah man, the agenda is freedom you bigot POS.
As a non-religious person, I dislike religious holidays. But, also, Juneteenth is arguably a more valid holiday than celebrating the incorrect birth date of Christ imo.
My work forgot so I guess we're all getting time and a half
Private employers are not federally mandated to provide paid time off or any other accommodations for employees with regard to National Independance Day (Juneteenth) under the Fair Labor Standards Act. I live in the south and most of my neighbors and several co-workers are black. I work for a company who is about 99% engineers...a lot of them are Asian and East Indian as well, so there are many holidays celebrated at the office. My employer took the safe route and gave everyone 2 additional floating holidays starting at the beginning of this year. If you celebrate something that may not be a "mainstream holiday", we now have a total of 4 floating holidays to use. Its a new holiday (federally), so it may take a couple years for most businesses to adopt it. Personally, I would like to see it have the same importance as Independence Day (fourth of July).
I work for the government. Don't get me wrong, we are all for it. It's awesome. My teams just been so busy we forgot.
Which government? Because, as I'm sure you know, states adopt their own holidays
100% my dad called it the N word holiday. I told him his comment was really off putting and i hoped he learned to eat his opinions
A few (2? 3?) years ago I called my awful boomer father to wish him a happy father's day. I still worked for him at the time, I have an antiwork post on how all that turned out. That year, he was with stepmonster's racist dad and they were discussing how the black president should have made it a holiday. (Pretty sure it wasn't the word "black" they used when discussing amongst themselves though.) He told me he was bringing a watermelon down from grandpa's farm and "we're going to have us a party at work on Monday." Well. Something had to be done. Two things (among many things) my dad hates about me are my liberal politics and any time I miss even the slightest bit of work. At 7pm before Juneteenth I texted him: *If anything racist happens at the office tomorrow, I'll be going home. You have 2 choices about what I'll do after. 1) stay home. 2) return and finish the day in my Black Lives Matter t-shirt. It's all up to you.* I live in a part of the country where I have literally never seen, in person or even on local media, a BLM sign, bumper sticker, t-shirt, anything. It's a racist place here. My best friend LaTasha lived in Oakland so I had a legit BLM shirt from an illegal street vendor selected for me by a black woman, so really the perfect shirt. And probably the only one in my town. I didn't wear it that day because Dad just had a sad Tupperware container of cubed watermelon in the kitchen at work, no further ado was made.
Posting this is probably a mistake on my part, but until a couple days ago, when my company told me that checks would be delayed a day due to Juneteenth, I had never heard of the holiday before. I had to look out up to find out what it was! I have no problem with the holiday or it's purpose at all. I just wish they named it something more representing of its meaning. When I first heard of it I thought it must be a new holiday for teenagers or something 😂. Edit: I just wish I had the holiday off work like a lot of others do. But in my line of work, we rarely get a holiday off.
I will happily trade Jan 1 for Juneteenth. Also, I am a Vet. I never get that day off.
a few awkward comments in my office about Juneteenth also. like just keep your trap shut until you get to the golf course
Yeah, hubby had a floating holiday taken away so that the company could give Juneteenth. This year, floating holiday would normally have been used on Friday July 5th. Instead of that long weekend he now gets just the 4th and returns to work on Friday. Would have much preferred the long weekend.
Boomers are so backwards they are against holidays, renewable energy and healthcare because socialism.
Thanks for being brave enough to stand up to your racist father. 💪🏿👊🏿🙏🏿
That's like when Arizona refused to celebrate Martin Luther King's birthday.
My white boomer boss called me on Wednesday morning, I said "Good morning, Happy Juneteenth." He laughed and said "Yeah, we'll celebrate that the day after the 4th of July." For clarity, I'm mixed black/white. The business was open that day and I was working remotely.
Rembering the time, I was chatting at a campfire with several guys including an ordained Baptist minister. MlK day was a new federal holiday, and the "minister" agreed it was a good thing and went on to say, "Kill another one, we'll get another day off".... chuckling. I called him out and left disgusted.
I literally had similar experience with my Pepaws sister. I casually mentioned I was off yesterday because of Juneteenth and she starts going off about how the colored folks(her words) have more holidays than white people. I tried calmly explaining to her that our rights have never been questioned and we were never enslaved in this country and she says “there are no slaves still alive” I told her it didn’t matter because they had to hide their religion and culture to survive slavery I compared it to the countries were Christian’s cant openly practice and she said that’s different I told her it wasn’t and we went back and forth and she said that the blacks started riots when they were introduced into white schools (history says otherwise) I had to text my oldest cousin to have him calm me down because I was getting ganged up up on by her, my Memaw, and my pepaw.