Produced by: Sina Technology
Compiled by: Jun Lin
"Yes, June Day only has one day. Although we don't know how our country will deal with inequality in the future, here we really hope that the actions we take on this June Day can promote more sustainable changes..."
Recently, thanks to the "black life is also life" movement, the farmers in the Bay Area have a new holiday.
Twitter The chief executives of Uber and Uber have announced that they will have a holiday on June 19 to commemorate the "abolition of black slavery".
On Tuesday, Jack Dorsey, CEO of both Twitter and Square, announced that the two companies will set June 19 as their holiday in the United States. Dorsey said that Twitter and Square will celebrate this festival every year in the future. Twitter spokesman also said that the company is studying to select suitable days in other countries with offices to celebrate the abolition of slavery.
Dara Khosrowshahi, the CEO of Uber, announced: "In order to celebrate the June Day this year, we will set it as a paid holiday. We encourage employees to stand up against racism, spend the day in this way, learn, participate in community activities, or reflect on how to make changes."
From the beginning of the movement of "black life is also life" Amazon Jeff Bezos, CEO, called on employees in an internal email to "cancel all meetings this Friday (June 19) to commemorate the 'Slave Abolition Day'". It is worth mentioning that Bezos did not give employees a holiday directly, but provided a series of online learning opportunities. "Employees should spend some time reflecting, learning and supporting each other," he said
Facebook The previous inaction on President Trump's controversial posts may seem to many people as "standing on the historical opposite", but this time a company spokesman said that "on June Day this year, Facebook will arrange a day of study to commemorate the end of American slavery. We will cancel all meetings to discuss the history of African Americans and the challenges they still face... "
Not only technology companies, but also other companies and organizations, such as Nike Both the NFL (National Football League) and the NFL (National Football League of the United States) said that June 19 would be a company holiday.
Flag of June Festival Originated in Texas
In the late 20th century, the most honorable product of Greater Texas was Dell The computer is not the music of Willie Nelson or Mexican barbecue, but "Juneenth" - June Festival.
At first, the June Festival was only a private festival in Texas. Juneenth stands for "June nineenth", that is, June 19. June Day, also known as Freedom Day or Liberation Day, commemorates the day 155 years ago. On the second day after the Union General Gordon Granger occupied Texas on behalf of the federal government, he stood on the balcony of Ashton Villa's home in Galveston, read aloud "General No. 3's military order" and declared the complete liberation of slaves.
After hearing the news, the slaves in Galveston were so excited that they couldn't help running to the street to celebrate.
Although President Lincoln's Declaration on the Emancipation of Black Slaves came into force two and a half years ago, due to the backward communication and slow message transmission at that time, plus many plantation owners and slave owners took their slaves to Texas to take refuge far away from the main battlefield of the Civil War, more than 200000 slaves in Texas were not liberated until June 19, 1865.
The following year, these free people organized the first June Festival celebration in Texas.
The Emancipation Proclamation of Black Slaves was copied in 1864 After more than a century, when these blacks and their descendants gradually left Texas, they also spread the June Festival to all parts of the United States. Historian Isabel Wilkerson later wrote: "People from Texas brought the June Festival to Los Angeles, Auckland, Seattle and other places where they went."
Today, technology companies in Silicon Valley have announced their intention to take the June Festival as a company festival. But in fact, in 1945, Wesley Johnson from Texas had brought the June Festival to San Francisco.
When such a festival with special commemorative significance met the African American People's Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s, more and more people and community organizations, as well as individuals living abroad, even American soldiers stationed in other countries, began to celebrate the June Festival in order to fight against apartheid and racial discrimination; Many places that did not celebrate the June Festival before began to celebrate it.
Crowds kneel in front of the statue of Dr. Martin Luther King to pay tribute to the June Festival, taken on June 19, 2020 | Manuel Balce Ceneta, The Associated Press Since Texas first adopted legislation to designate June Day as a state holiday in 1980, every state in the United States (including Washington, D.C.), except Hawaii, has already designated June Day as a state holiday or anniversary. However, some organizations still hope to go further and make this day a national legal holiday.
In 2018, Apple The company took the lead in adding June Festival as an American holiday to the iOS system calendar.
Two years later, more technology companies began to attach importance to the June Festival.
Lingering racial inequality
The racial issue is like a time bomb buried in American society, which may explode at any time and bring trauma to the society.
Although the slaves had been completely liberated in name since June 19, 1865, they still had to face deep-rooted social discrimination, and still needed to fight hard to fight for equal social status for themselves. Because of this, the significance of June Day is not only to commemorate the day of the liberation of slaves, but also to symbolize the efforts made by black groups to fight against inequality, as well as the efforts made by vulnerable groups to fight against inequality.
Every campaign against racial discrimination will remind more people of the June Festival.
This year is the 155th anniversary of the June Festival, and it is also the year when the "black life is also life" movement once again opened the scar of racial inequality. Whether conforming to online public opinion or sincerely, most technology companies have expressed their attitudes and made more commitments at this time point.
Google Celebrate the 155th anniversary of June Festival with graffiti videos To celebrate the 155th anniversary of the June Festival, Google released a special graffiti video on June 19 this year. The video begins with the first sentence of the unofficial black national anthem, "Let's sing loudly", and tells the story of African Americans fighting for freedom a hundred years ago. "I hope this year's (June Day) celebration can let more people see our efforts and promote more and more important changes in the future," said Angelica McKinley, the creative director of the graffiti project.
At the beginning of this month, Google also added the June Festival to its calendar as an American holiday. Google Smart Voice Assistant can now answer questions such as "What is June Festival?". YouTube Music has also created a new song list with the theme of "June Festival: Song of Freedom".
In addition to these, Google is also trying to provide substantial help to the black community. The company said last Wednesday that it promised to provide more than 175 million dollars to help black enterprises and increase the proportion of black executives in the leadership.
Amazon, headquartered in Seattle, has always stood firm since the death of George Freud, thanks to the thorough consideration of CEO Jeff Bezos on race issues. Bezos has more than once openly retaliated against racism on Instagram, saying: "This hatred should not be hidden. It must be exposed." He added: "I am happy to lose customers like you."
Bezos public callback user In the face of critics' doubts about the "black life is also life" movement, Bezos said frankly: "'black life is also life' does not mean that other people's lives are not important. Black life is also important, which is aimed at racism, which is aimed at the disproportionate risk that blacks face in our law enforcement and judicial system."
On June Day, Bezos encouraged everyone to cancel all meetings and provide a series of online learning opportunities for employees. "Please take some time to reflect, learn and support each other. Slavery was abolished long ago, but racism did not," Bezos wrote in an email.
Uber's competitors Lyft It was subsequently announced that June will be the official holiday of the company from this year. The company also announced that it would hold a sharing meeting on the day of the June Festival to popularize the history and significance of the June Festival. It also shared a bicycle route map of the June Festival through Citi Bike to celebrate the company's first June Festival.
"You don't belong here"
It is a good thing that technology companies are willing to pay attention to the June Festival. However, this is not the case.
Although many companies, including Google and Facebook, have promised to diversify their workforce, black employees still say that the technology industry is reluctant to eliminate racial prejudice.
Leslie Miley, an engineering manager at Google, has decades of experience in the technology industry. On a weekday morning in September, Miley walked into Google's office in San Francisco with his colleagues as usual. His work card is hung on his waist, which is very eye-catching.
Suddenly, a Google employee who was not a security guard stopped Miley and asked to check his work card. Miley said that this is not the first time it has happened. He said that such behavior seemed to tell people of color, "You don't belong here".
In 2014, companies in Silicon Valley began to release their annual diversity reports, disclosing the population distribution in the workforce. However, five years later, compared with commercial success, large technology companies have made little progress in employee diversity.
Google and Microsoft Among the scientific and technological personnel employed in the United States, the number of African American or Hispanic employees increased by less than 1% compared with 2014. On Facebook, African Americans only account for 3.8%; Only 3% of senior management are African Americans. Amazon rarely discloses the population distribution among technology employees.
This racial prejudice also exists in the way companies treat users and consumers.
In April 2018, Starbucks A Philadelphia branch refused to allow two black men who did not consume in the store to use the bathroom of the store. The shop assistant said that the bathroom in the shop is only open to customers who have consumption. After the two men refused to leave, the clerk also called the police to arrest them. Later, two black men said on social media that they saw white people who were allowed to use the bathroom in the store without spending money. Starbucks employees were obviously treating blacks differently.
Finally, Kevin Johnson, CEO of Starbucks, apologized in person, and temporarily closed the stores across the country for three hours for anti racial training.
Crisis Text Line is a global non-profit organization that provides free and private mental health SMS services for people in distress. The organization has received support from Prince Harry and Princess Megan, and millions of dollars of sponsorship from the Audacious Project related to TED. Over the years, Crisis Text Line has also been paying attention to the mental health of the black community.
However, even for such a non-profit organization, even if 42% of its employees are non white, Crisis Text Line still cannot avoid the racial prejudice deeply rooted in the American society, or, to put it mildly, it is not very interested in the black group. When employee Jo (not his real name) tried to make a statement on behalf of the company for the death of black man Ahmad Arbery, his boss not only considered it unnecessary, but also asked Jo to go home and stay calm for a day after Jo drafted a draft.
This "inattentive" attitude towards the black group, coupled with the fact that only one of the company's nine senior executives is not white, makes some colored employees in the company feel symbolized and marginalized.
"Tama, you are free!"
Abadessi Osonsade, founder of Hustle Crew, a career development platform, said that technology companies should not always make one-off statements and actions, but should cultivate a habit for racial equality. For example, taking hiring African Americans as a habit, promoting African Americans as a habit, paying equal salaries to African Americans as a habit, and investing in African American founders to provide more leadership positions for African Americans as a habit can really change the status of racial prejudice in the industry.
Recently, Facebook announced that it will spend at least $100 million annually to help African American suppliers. At the beginning of this month, Alexis Ohanian, the founder of Reddit, withdrew from the board of directors of the company to give credit to African Americans.
"Yes, June Day is only one day, although we don't know how our country will deal with inequality in the future," Matt Perry, the chief officer of Kapor Center, a non-profit organization dedicated to making the technology industry more diverse and inclusive, wrote in a blog post, "But here, we really hope that the actions we take this June Festival can promote more sustainable changes..."
However, when more and more people celebrate June Day to support racial equality and express their desire to eliminate racial discrimination, others also question it.
Back in 1979, the Texas House of Representatives Ali ·When Al Edwards proposed June as a state holiday, he did not expect to be opposed by Clay Smothers, another black compatriot of the House of Representatives. Smothers believed that the real slave liberation day was January 1, 1863, the day when the Emancipation Proclamation came into effect, rather than June 19, 1865, nearly two and a half years later. The celebration of June Day was "to celebrate a deceptive festival".
Such an idea is not uncommon among African Americans. However, despite all the controversies and motivations, on June 19, 155 years ago, the black slaves in Galveston were really happy when they heard General Granger read aloud the "Order of General No.3" and announced the complete liberation of the slaves.
Amelia Barr, a writer in Austin, recorded the joy of her slave Harriet when she heard the news: she "rushed to her children, as if she had used all her strength to shout, 'Tama, you are free! You are free, Tama!'"
Reference link:
https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/independence-day/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth#cite_note -44
https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/behavioral-competencies/global-and-cultural-effectiveness/pages/black-tech-employees-continue-to-face-workplace-racism.aspx
https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/18/tech-companies-just-found-out-about-juneteenth-and-this-is-what-theyre-doing/
https://www.theverge.com/21293176/crisis-text-line-ceo-racism-insensitivity-police-nancy-lublin-mental-health
