Come On Over to the Cookout: What Real Allyship Looks Like This Juneteenth

Appropriation vs. Appreciation: A Conversation About Juneteenth

Happy Juneteenth to all my Black family, friends, and chosen family. Today I’m celebrating you — your freedom, your resilience, and the beauty you bring into this world every single day. 💜🌈🌟🦄💚

A few days ago, I asked my Black Beloveds a question. I had read something online that stopped me in my tracks: “I don’t celebrate Juneteenth because I’ve heard Black Americans saying whites need to stay out of the celebration, because it’s about Black Freedom.” I wanted to know — is that true? Is that the sentiment? And if so, what is the best way for me to honor this day, giving it and the Black community the respect that they so very much deserve.

My beautiful Soul SiSTAR, Naa Kwarley, answered. Not with a quick take, but with her whole heart — unfiltered, honest, and generous in a way that asked something real of me. I am endlessly grateful for her sisterhood, and for trusting me enough to share her true heart so openly. That kind of honesty is a gift, and I don’t take it lightly. With her permission, here is what she told me, exactly as she wrote it:

“I believe that any Black person who might have said that and/or feels that way is because we are just SO fucking tired of non-Black people taking EVERYTHING from us. Our culture. Our traditions. Our spirituality. Our style. Our flex. Our swag. Our very fucking lives.... Just the other day, I was scrolling FB and watching reels. The number of white people on there dancing to Black music, making dance moves that are entrenched in the Black community, and just generally doing what Black folks are known for made me just shake my head and think: ‘They hate us so much, to the point of murdering us (and getting away with it), yet here they are on screen doing what we do. They say our music is trash, excites violence, promotes drugs/elicit sex/gang banging, yet look at all of them dancing to our music and doing what we popularized. Can we not have ANYTHING that is ours???’ I think this is where the sentiment of white folk not celebrating Juneteenth is coming from. They always taking our stuff...”

“BUT — here’s my personal take on white people celebrating Juneteenth. If you are celebrating WITH us AND celebrating our FREEDOM, then come on over to the cook out! If you are a TRUE ally and not afraid to be public about your support of Black people and the condition this world has us in, come on over to the cook out. If you are not afraid to stand with us publicly, to use your voice and your platforms in our defense and to spread the knowledge of what is still being done to us 161 years after we were supposedly freed, come on over to the cook out. If you understand that Abraham Lincoln was no hero who abolished slavery — that he simply did it to solve a problem for WHITE people, that he did it in such a way that slavery was still possible, that he did it in such a way that made it impossible to survive unless we stayed on the plantations and continued working the fields, then come on over to the cook out. If in your heart you AUTHENTICALLY stand with Black people as a FULL ALLY and really would do anything in your power to fix the plight of Black people — especially in Amerikkka — but all around the world, then come on over to the cook out.”

“It is a matter of appropriation vs appreciation... Are you celebrating Juneteenth because you genuinely care, genuinely want to help, genuinely standing in the gap for us and with us? Or are you celebrating Juneteenth because it’s a day off work and an opportunity to have your own cookout?”

“I celebrate Juneteenth (obviously) because that was the day that Black folk could finally raise their head and be publicly proud of the beautiful color of their skin. Because that was the day we could PUBLICLY start fighting back, fighting for our freedom, fighting for our civil and human rights. BUT — I do not celebrate July 4th. Not my independence day! We weren’t free on July 4, 1776. We weren’t free on July 4, 1865 (even though Lincoln said we were). And we aren’t free on July 4, 2026... This country was built on the backs of my Black Ancestors and we still are not acknowledged, thanked, or appreciated for what Black people did for this country. Why celebrate its independence when it’s clear that our contributions to this country are nowhere in sight during this celebration? We are no more than a pestilence in this country to some people — the very people who brought this Black plague to this land and still are trying to exterminate the ‘problem’.”

Every single thing she names as the criteria for coming to the cookout — I believe in those things with my whole heart. Not performatively. Not because it’s a day off work. Genuinely, always, in the gap, with her and with all of my Black Beloveds. First and foremost, I hold space for the fact that a true atrocity was perpetrated against Black people in this country — and against our Indigenous First Nations relatives too — one this country has never fully reckoned with or repaired. Because biologically we are all one race, the human race, and we all spring from Mitochondrial Eve and it is ludicrous that anyone should be treated any differently no matter where they are from or what color they are or anything else that makes up our beautiful, diverse, preposterous existence.

It’s a matter of appropriation versus appreciation. It’s a matter of showing up publicly, not just privately. It’s a matter of asking myself, honestly: am I doing this because I care, or because it’s a day off of work?

My Gig-Sister, XTC also left a comment on my original post that I think belongs here too, because it turns reflection into action. Some simple, doable things we as white people can actually do:

• Send kind messages to your Black friends.

• Spend money at Black-owned businesses.

• Take your Black friends out, if they’re open to it.

• Spend time actually learning what anti-racist work looks like.

• Talk to your fellow white people about what is still happening right now.

That last one matters most to me. It’s easy to nod along in agreement with the people who already understand. It’s harder — and far more necessary — to bring this conversation to the people who don’t.

So today, I’m not just celebrating. I’m recommitting. To showing up beyond the cookout, beyond the holiday, beyond the day off. To being the kind of ally Naa Kwarley described — not because it’s asked of me, but because it’s who I am and I want to be better at it.

Thank you, Naa Kwarley, for the gift of YOU and your sisterhood in my life and your (one year older) elder wysdom! I love you always.

With Love & Paint & Stardust,