Cornell, it is time for us to take Critical Whiteness pedagogy seriously and celebrate Juneteenth on February 12. Instead of celebrating Juneteenth on June 19, we should lament that the slaves in Delaware (a blue state), unlike those in Texas (a red state), were still not free on Juneteenth (June 19, 1865). Just because Delaware was part of the Union, does not mean that it was not a slave state.

The slaves in Delaware were not free until December 6, 1865 when the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution was ratified by 27 out of the 36 states on December 6, 1865 and proclaimed on December 18, 1865. Delaware was not one of the 27 states, and it did not ratify the Thirteenth Amendment until February 12, 1901.

We white folx must decenter our whiteness. We must not be fragile nor defensive. We must take a full bodied approach to our whiteness and shed our white skin privilege and eliminate our white blind spots. We must fight the white supremacists that threw our slave brothers, sisters, and non-binaries from Delaware under the bus, and decenter February 12 from a celebration of the birthdays of two white men (Lincoln and Darwin) to a celebration of Juneteenth.

The real Juneteenth is February 12 when Delaware ratified the Thirteenth Amendment.