White Boy Juneteenth

The real antidote to leftist race-bating is alpha chad energy.

I swear, conservatives never learn. The Left keeps running the same play on us, and it keeps working. They take something good, just, and American—equality under the law, for example—and morph it subtly into something foolish, destructive, and authoritarian—i.e., in this example, equality of outcomes.  

Then they wear the good thing as a skin suit so they can force conservatives into one of two positions. Either we reject the good thing—“screw equality!”—or we glumly accept the Left’s twisted version of it, albeit at a slower pace and while harrumphing over points of order: “of course, systemic injustice is obviously a problem, but well, reparations, that’s just impracticable!” (read: for now).

Consider the case of Juneteenth. Democrats in Congress have taken a great American triumph—the end of chattel slavery at an immeasurable cost of heroes’ lives—and used it as a front for installing what will surely become another national liturgy of bitter partisan spite. Juneteenth as an event commemorating the forcible liberation of slaves in Galveston, TX has a long and meaningful history. Juneteenth as a congressionally-mandated federal holiday is already being used as a pretext to transform our national symbols and further unmake our once-shared way of life. “It’s Juneteenth AND reparations,” tweeted Democratic Representative Cori Bush. “It’s Juneteenth AND end police violence.” 

So it goes. Conservatives, outmaneuvered again, seem to be choosing one of two positions on this issue: either we are against celebrating the end of slavery at all because it distracts from more ecumenical holidays like July 4. Or else we are dutifully explaining to one another that actually it was very good to free the slaves, and black people have done very many wonderful things, and by the way Democrats are the real racists.  

All of these things are actually quite true. Democrat policies do impoverish and immiserate black people, Democrats are using Juneteenth in their relentless quest to destroy our country, and the end of slavery is a remarkable feat worth marking in our national calendar. But recounting these facts angrily at one another, in terms already set for us by our leftist enemies, gets us nowhere. Besides which, it turns an ostensible debate over celebration into a grim, joyless, and singularly unfun internal firefight. This is a further sign that leftist tactics are working like a charm.

But there is another energy floating around the internet these days besides Juneteenth Discourse Energy. I am talking, of course, about White Boy Summer Energy. If you don’t know what this means, let me assure you up front: despite its name, White Boy Summer is not actually to do with race or gender. You don’t have to be white or a boy to project White Boy Summer Energy: you just have to channel the antic insouciance of a red-blooded American college kid drinking White Claw by the pool.  

White Boy Summer is whimsy, exuberance, and obnoxiously extravagant celebration. The alpha chads of White Boy Summer have not read your 5,000-word explainer on Realignment Politics; they are too busy photoshopping Pit Vipers onto their gym selfies and grilling for an intimate circle of friends in their backyard—i.e., they are too busy actually doing the local community-building of which realignment politics will in fact be made. After a year spent cooped up inside and harassed by Antifa thugs, White Boy Summer is ready to emerge, draped in American flags and drenched gloriously in mayonnaise. 

If the beginning of wisdom is fear of the Lord, the beginning of prudence is knowing what you can and can’t change. Democrats and their Republican stooges have voted a petty, Marxist version of Juneteenth onto the national calendar. You can’t change that, and neither can I. But Joe Biden can’t tell you how to party, either, and you don’t need the federal government’s permission to have a good time.  

I would like to propose, then, that patriots of every race and both genders sidestep the Juneteenth boondoggle altogether by hurling themselves unreservedly into White Boy Summer. Even if we want to pick another (less online, less ironic) name for it, we should embrace the spirit of the thing entirely. In every way and on every platform, we must exude a carefree, wholesome, slightly day-drunk kind of delight in being Americans, dammit, in spite of it all, who are not about to let idiot wokescolds teach us why we should hate each other. 

Here is the beauty of it: this doesn’t mean you can’t celebrate the end of slavery. For my money, in fact, you should. But you should do it on your own terms: the terms of White Boy Summer. Drink a seltzer toast to Lincoln at your backyard barbecue if you want, or pour one out for the 54th Massachusetts. Then go back to building the kind of families and friendships with like-minded fellow Americans that will help us take our country back from these Marxist heathens. That’s real rebellion. That’s how you honor your nation and your history. And above all, that’s White Boy Summer. 

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Spencer Klavan is associate editor of the Claremont Review of Books, features editor of The American Mind, and host of the Young Heretics podcast.