Black Joy as Rebellion

As we mark another Juneteenth—a holiday commemorating the delayed freedom of enslaved Black people in the U.S.—we must confront a bitter truth: freedom delayed is still freedom denied. From the blood-soaked soil of Sudan to the razed streets of Gaza, from the mineral mines of Congo to the nuclear threats made by Israel toward Iran, the machinery of Empire continues to grind down the bodies and dreams of the oppressed. And at the heart of that machinery sits the United States and its military-industrial complex—a system that has never stopped waging war against Black, Brown, and Indigenous life, at home and abroad.