Editors note: Actor Dwayne Barnes writes occasional columns here at Deadline and today he confronts his mixed feelings that come with the official holiday status of Juneteenth. Abraham Lincoln issu…
Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. It stated that all enslaved people in the Confederate states “Shall be then, and henceforth forever free.” However, this didn’t instantly come into reality. It took two more years; troops had to go and take control of the state to ensure that just as the proclamation stated, “all enslaved people were free.
I’m thankful those days are continually shifting. We have seen many films and TV series as of late and of past depicting historical portrayals of the African American community’s horrendous journeys of slavery and other subjugations. I have stretched and grown from the knowledge, insight, and grueling terror of them all. I feel where my academic life fell short in educating me on the atrocities of my ancestral journey, the entertainment media has victoriously won.
I’m not judging anyone, nor their creative expressions. As an actor, I have participated in hard-to-watch content myself. Each man must tell the story that sings in their heart. I’m a big supporter of that. I’m simply stating my truth and my dream. My brother recently told me he felt I was too sensitive. So, these are words coming from a too sensitive man’s perspective. They are not the words of a defector of the cause of the fight for racial justice: a battle that I live to see won.
I will personally grapple with this dilemma. How can I genuinely celebrate freedom when I’m constantly witnessing the toxic, ignorant, and vile individuals via the media who aren’t intelligent enough to accept the reality of being human? That we are all equal and we are all free. Is seeing this barrage of historical and modern-day hate serving me or subconsciously defeating me? I’m sorry, but I don’t want to keep seeing their faces and taking in their disturbing negative energy.
The definition of probation states the release of an offender from detention, subject to a period of good behavior under supervision. As we’ve seen time and time again, one never knows when an African Americans’ sheer human tendency of making a traffic error may cost us our lives under the supervision of oppression. Our shameful truth. And these displays are what seem to be the most relevant thing that appears to engage audiences. They keep many of us triggered, angered, and afraid.
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