Top Five Conversations We Dont Want To Hear At The Juneteenth Cookout

By Malaika Jabali and Rayna Reid Rayford ·Updated June 19, 2023

As the oldest holiday in our country that celebrates the end of slavery, Juneteenth originally started as a small festival amongst Texan Black communities. “Originally, the main focus of Juneteenth was education,” and nowadays many families gather together for massive cookouts.

Cookouts have a long tradition within Black culture “because it brought together enslaved people during important communal affairs to bond and cook.” Nowadays, cookouts have become the place where we can “comfortably be ourselves. The cookout is often the best place to see blackness in its purest and often happiest, most carefree form,” writes Madame Noire.

This year marks 158 years since Black slaves in Texas learned they were finally free. And we also want to free ourselves from these typical cookout conversations.

Who is fixing whose plate

Fellas, if you are near the food line already, go ahead and grab your lady a plate. Ladies, if you want to get up from where you are sitting to fix your man a plate, do that. We all have legs, but some folks are more traditional. Do you and don’t argue about other people doing them.

Which white person is invited to the cookout

No one has sole authority to hand out cookout passes. We are not promoters of the BIP (Black Important People) section at the Black people gatherings. In the spirit of equality, we will gladly go to the BBQ and bring our banana pudding, but we’re not expecting fictional BBQ invites from the white delegation.

Which cookout food should be eliminated

We’re not choosing between mac and cheese and potato salad, PLEASE.

Whatever entanglements Blueface and Chrisean are in

For whatever reason this toxic couple has a chokehold on our virtual conversations. Let’s leave them in the comments section on IG and Twitter this one day IRL.

Trying Black people who can’t play spades

Look, some of us didn’t catch on to this Black staple when we were in middle school, and then it got too awkward to figure it out after that. We’ll spectate and watch the fights that break out from the sidelines, ok?