06/24/2026
We (read: the whole chorus) had a great time at the concert and have been taking a wee break to set up a few exciting things for summer and beyond.
Meanwhilst! We (read: I, Mjjah, the only one running this account for now) regrettably missed posting something on Juneteenth to commemorate the occasion because community aid and too many other things took priority of the day, and so I want to take some time to talk about that now while it's fresh on my mind and have a moment to do so.
We wouldn't have Barbershop if it weren't for enslaved African-Americans in the mid-nineteenth-century American South, period.
And, if you are doing your historical due diligence, you'd know that we wouldn't have much of an America without them, either: at every major pivotal point in white American history, BIPOC play significant roles in fights for justice for all while still never having fully achieved it for themselves. In modern history, the rights of everyone on that progress flag were paved by transgender and disabled folks of color leading the fight, and don't you ever forget it!
Juneteenth reminds us that our government was built on ideals of freedom it hadn't yet realized -- in reality, the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness was granted not to all but to those who took it from others as well as the land they stood on while forcibly taking free persons from their homes, rightfully fearing for their lives, to provide "freedom" (read: convenience through unpaid labor) to the enslavers.
Juneteenth teaches us that for a year after slavery was "abolished," the freedoms "granted" to the previously enslaved were so tied up in regulations obviously meant to deter anyone from trying to enjoy them that Blacks had to join the military in order to even get the message to those folks in Galveston who did not know they were no longer enslaved and to then enforce the new laws *for they would have kept right on working without pay otherwise.*
It teaches us that, just like the end of segregation, nothing was ever "granted" without a fight by the oppressed followed by structural abandonment by the begrudgingly-conceding oppressors, not streamers and confetti. Even barbershop followed suit, finally allowing Blacks into their own hobby at the international level but leaving the choice of chapter integration and repertoire selection up to the members. How do you think that went? I'd like to tell you the hobby got it sorted, but the work of eliminating racism from barbershop performance and repertoire that glorifies the Old South during the period of slavery and Jim Crow continues right up to today! (Well, yesterday, and even then: without apology, without commitment to doing better, and without any specificity that might prevent others from making the same mistake, despite the ever-present opportunity to use their platform to pay that labor forward, choosing instead to erase entirely the cognitive and emotional labor done for them. Edit: this isn't a slam at anyone, but an observation of the sorts of things that have hindered progress repeatedly in the past, and how doing better when we know better is meant to *actionably* repair harm first and foremost.)
This Pride we have seen the continued attacks on trans people -- identities that were honored and revered in indigenous cultures globally prior to European colonialism -- and remember that our fights for true freedom for all overlap, intersect, align, and have so much farther to go, even as we struggle to keep what gains have been achieved from being rolled back.
We want to see Everyone In Harmony realized. That means being intentional about the music we make, holding space for unsung voices, and encouraging the creation of new works.
We'll be exploring and talking about these new-to-us reads on the shelf soon:
"Social Justice in Action: Models for Campus and Community," collected and edited by Neal A Lester
"Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics" by Trace Peterson, TC Tolbert, and 53 other trans folks
Drop your favorite reads and poets to celebrate Juneteenth and Pride below! And your favorite trans composers/arrangers, we want those, too!
