The Intersectionality of PRIDE and Juneteenth

In honor of Juneteenth in the middle of PRIDE month, intersectionality is a reminder that we hold multiple identities such as our race/ ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, class, religion, disability, and age that create unique lived experiences for each person, resulting in different advantages and disadvantages. The intersection of identities influences power and privilege as well as oppression and discrimination. Intersectionality is defined as a “contextual framework for examining how systems of oppression deeply intertwine and influence experiences and opportunities.”

Understanding intersectionality is important, and CARE Counseling is committed to advancing social justice in mental health. The significance of overlapping events celebrating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans along with the struggles and triumphs of the LGBTQ+ community offer opportunities for reflections on intersectionality and lived experiences.

With over 200 therapists, CARE can assist with matching you with a therapist to meet your needs such as BIPOC and LGBTQ providers as well as a team of highly trained clinicians who have interests and specialties in a wide range of presenting concerns. CARE strives to create safe spaces to process experiences of harassment and discrimination, racism and racial trauma, homophobia, transphobia, heterosexism, and microaggressions as well as reflect on power and privilege. Your therapist can help address mental health issues such as adjusting to stressors, coping with trauma, and treating mental health symptoms such as anxiety and depression. Our narratives include pain, struggle, beauty, and resilience which are unique to everyone. Learning more about others’ experiences and sharing your own experience is incredibly powerful.

The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) has a variety of books (for children and adults), shows, movies, and Black-led organizations to follow. Check out the following from their website:

Books

On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed
Weaving together American history, dramatic family chronicle, and searing episodes of memoir, Annette Gordon- Reed’s On Juneteenth provides a historian’s view of the country’s long road to Juneteenth, recounting both its origins in Texas and the enormous hardships that African-Americans have endured in the century since, from Reconstruction through Jim Crow and beyond.

Juneteenth: A Children’s Story by Opal Lee
An engaging way to introduce the history of slavery and freedom to children in words they can understand. Ms. Opal highlights the celebration of Juneteenth and the importance of commemorating this milestone all across America.

Juneteenth for Mazie by Floyd Cooper
Mazie is ready to celebrate liberty. She is ready to celebrate freedom. She is ready to celebrate a great day in American history. The day her ancestors were no longer slaves. Mazie remembers the struggles and the triumph, as she gets ready to celebrate Juneteenth.

Juneteenth by Ralph Ellison
In Juneteenth, Ralph Ellison evokes the rhythms of jazz and gospel and ordinary speech to tell a powerful tale of a prodigal son in the twentieth century. With the aid of Ellison’s widow, Fanny, his literary executor, John Callahan, has edited this magnificent novel at the center of Ralph Ellison’s forty-year work in progress — its author’s abiding testament to the country he so loved and to its many unfinished tasks.

Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad
Me and White Supremacy leads readers through a journey of understanding their white privilege and participation in white supremacy, so that they can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on Black, Indigenous and People of Color, and in turn, help other white people do better, too.

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
The New Jim Crow is a stunning account of the rebirth of a caste-like system in the United States, one that has resulted in millions of African Americans locked behind bars and then relegated to a permanent second-class status — denied the very rights supposedly won in the Civil Rights Movement.

Stony the Road by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
In this new book, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., one of our leading chroniclers of the African-American experience, seeks to answer that question in a history that moves from the Reconstruction Era to the “nadir” of the African-American experience under Jim Crow, through to World War I and the Harlem Renaissance.

For more book recommendations, check out the Juneteenth Reading List from Penguin Random House.

Shows and Movies

Juneteenth Jamboree
Juneteenth Jamboree illuminates the significance of the Juneteenth holiday and shares stories about black culture and history. You can view this year’s episodes and an archive of past years for free through the PBS website.

Miss Juneteenth

Miss Juneteenth is a soulful journey of a determined woman who takes on the burden of representing history, and generations of black women, while standing tall despite her own shortcomings as she marches, step by step, toward self-realization.

The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross
Noted scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. recounts the full trajectory of African-American history in this six-part series. The series explores the evolution of the African-American people, as well as the multiplicity of cultural institutions, political strategies, and religious and social perspectives they developed — forging their own history, culture and society against unimaginable odds.

13th
When the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified in 1865, former slaves expected freedom for the rest of their lives, as it ruled slavery of any kind unlawful. However, Director Ava Duvernay explores a loophole, which deems a form of slavery acceptable in the legal form of criminal punishment. Duvernay’s documentary “13th” takes a well-informed look at this loophole and administers a researched look at the American incarceration system and how it contributes to systemic racism today.

Black-Led Organizations to Follow

GLSEN
Instagram: @GLSEN

The National Black Justice Coalition
Instagram: @nbjconthemove

TransLash Media
Instagram: @translashmedia

African American Policy Forum
Instagram: @aapolicyforum

Written By: Charlotte Johnson, MA, LPCC

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The Intersectionality of PRIDE and Juneteenth

In honor of Juneteenth in the middle of PRIDE month, intersectionality is a reminder that we hold multiple identities such as our race/ ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, class, religion, disability, and age that create unique lived experiences for each person, resulting in different advantages and disadvantages.

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