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Comment by logifail | Hacker News Reader

> Part of it is that it absolutely invokes AAVE. It forces people to consider and be reminded of Black American culture

If you don't already know what "Juneteenth" means, the word itself gives you nothing to help you understand. Literally zilch. It involkes nothing.

"Emancipation Day" does give the outsider a clue.

Names matter.

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Ah, just like Easter, Christmas, Ramadan, Fat Tuesday, Valentine's Day, Purim, Holi, Passover, Cinco De Mayo, D-Day, etc. etc. etc.

Observances regularly don't give you a clue what they are about. Like, if you weren't already aware about Martin Luther King, Jr. day, you'd have to Google it to know what's up. Same with Rosh Hashana. Or Eid. I think you might be getting stuck on something that is demonstrably not a unique phenomena and it's reading a little like there's something about Juneteenth itself that's bothering you.

The UK just gave up and named them "Late May Bank Holiday".

Again. GOOD GOOD GOOD.

What you have just told me is a FEATURE. Not a BUG.

I'm very GOOD with people "not immediately knowing." I like that. It forces them to learn about my people and culture.

"Juneteenth" makes you step in and perhaps get a little uncomfortable, like, hmm weird little Black-sounding phrase?

"Emancipation Day" frees (lol) you from engaging, you can just sort of take on the same ol same ol story, which, I imagine for many people starts with Abraham Lincoln and not Black people.

I didn't realize "Juneteenth" was considered "Black-sounding" by some people. Juneteenth is a pretty culturally mainstream term (being a national holiday). And forming new words using contractions doesn't seem like a typically Black-person thing to do.

I associate the term with Black people, not because of how it sounds, but because I know what it means and know about it's origin among formerly-enslaved Black communities.

That's super interesting. I'm not why my assumptions are different, perhaps because I'm black and 48 years old?

Maybe you mainly heard it said by black people, so it just sounds black to you? Whereas someone who heard about it on Twitter in 2015 wouldn't have made the same subconscious association, even if it's explicitly about celebrating freeing black people from slavery.

Oh, no. It sounds black because it is black. Check the history. "Juneteenth" the term was absolutely invented by black folks. I'm just finding it interesting that it "doesn't sound black to others."

I mean, I know that. I'm thinking of why it doesn't "sound black" to others but it does to you. Words are just words. They don't have inherent qualities that can't change or are the same to those who haven't heard the word before.

Yeah, I mean I know this can be a feather-ruffling point but (esp at my age) there's something wild about the Black slang -> "mainstream cool" slang pipeline that's ubiquitous and feels instant. :)

“Words are just words”

Lord Jesus save me. Tell me you are a software developer without telling me you’re a software developer.

The site is pretty much entirely software developers.

You understand how recently it was made a national holiday?

I had this conversation with a group of people today and literally not one of them knew its true origin and the word never propelled them to look into it further. They just assumed (correctly) that someone came up with the name because it’s in June and the nineTEENTH day, but they didn’t realize the term was actually used long ago.

So take from that anecdote what you will, but I’ll admit the name kind of has a modern sound and I don’t think it spurs the kind of curiosity that you hope it does.

Also, FWIW, the name “Emancipation Day” is also a commonly used name for the holiday, though not as common as Juneteenth.

"Emancipation Day" is way too ambiguous in the US because there are already several other days that are called "Emancipation Day" in various states [1].

They mostly all have something to do with the ending of slavery but it is different things in different states. For example in Massachusetts it is on July 8th and commemorates slavery being found to be legally unenforceable there under in a 1783 decision.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emancipation_Day#United_States

Do Thanksgiving.

Also, if Serbia has some holidays that I can't recognize when I read them from a calendar, should Serbia change the names of them for me? Or is it only the words that black Americans use that aren't real when random people don't recognize them?

I mean... you could just look it up, if you didn't know. Plenty of places have obscurely-named holidays (for instance, a number of countries have Whit Monday as a holiday; good luck figuring out what _that_ is from the name...)

> "Emancipation Day" does give the outsider a clue.

shall we also rename shabbat and yom kippur and purim so that "outsiders" can have a clue?

people are so tone deaf sometimes - it's not for you - it's for the people whose ancestors were freed on this day.

> the word itself gives you nothing to help you understand

neither does any other word that you don't bother to look up in dictionary or encyclopedia.

Actually, I guess we have! Notice how you typed "shabbat" and not "שבת". Much easier to Google.

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