Is it possible that the Wagner you eschewed is from Lohengrin, and not from Tristan und Isolde?

(BTW - I have to agree with you - the Wagner sounds ominous to me!)

Sent by Tom Emmert | 6:37 PM ET | 06-19-2007

Dear Michel Martin,
Thank you for doing the piece on Juneteenth. Being a transplant from Chicago IL, to the San Franciso Bay Area in the late 60's; I found Juneteenth in my new adopted state, bewildering! Fresh from Chicago, with my "Black-consciousness " swirling around my head,in 1968, Juneteenth, well, was laughable! Being ever, so aware, & hip, of all things Black, why was it I had never heard of this Black holiday ? In my naivete', I summed the celebration up to, folks in California & Texas just being in a way, slow, & well, kind of country; even in progressive San Francisco. In fact, who would want to celebrate not knowing until 2 years after Emancipation that one was FREE !
After living in California for many years now, I'm more respecting of the holiday & what it means to many people living here in the Bay Area, which many are from Taxas & are close friends. Ihave even been to, all day Juneteenth celebrations & really enjoyed myself; but never really felt the holiday, down deep in my bones. Their have been years where I did not give it a second thought, not until someone brought up the celebration, such as your program did today, for me.
In fact, i learned more about how one should actually look at Juneteenth & the meaning, we all could think about, thanks to your guest, Mark Anthony Neal & always in your face with his brand of truth Paul Mooney.
Thank you & "Tell Me More",for giving me more to work with, & to think about, when June19th come around from now on sincerely Robert H.

Sent by Robert Hill | 10:49 PM ET | 06-19-2007

A famous scientist once said "The future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed."

Juneteenth is a reminder that this is the nature of reality. Some groups of people are always dealing with a smaller set of facts, and because of that, they live in a constrained reality.

African Americans are not all fully accustomed to using their freedoms. Though all of us have the right and liberty to pursue nearly infinite options in America, the fact is that most of us don't. We live in the same towns our grandparents live in, we eat the same food, we watch the same TV shows. An example I like to give is this: although all of us have been to McDonalds hundreds of times, how many times have we ordered the vanilla shake?

Jill Nelson published a book almost two decades ago called 'Volunteer Slavery'. She describes how for all of her life she was encouraged to break certain barriers and attain certain goals, for her the march up the corporate ladder. When she got there, she found that she was a prisoner of her ambitions, bound by her commitments to fulfill dreams that hadn't changed. She quit and suddenly saw herself and life in general in a whole new light.

Stop and think a moment about all of the criticism we level at ourselves. How often do we actually do something about it and decide to take responsibility? Last week we were talking about obesity and how black men's tastes in women persuade women to do things that are not in their own self-interest. That's what I call volunteer slavery. We know that healthy life is out there, unevenly distributed, but how many of us are going to quit answering that same old doorbell and really go there?

As a black man who is a member of the Republican Party, I know how difficult it is to break old habits. But you know what? I'm enjoying my vanilla shake.

Sent by Cobb | 11:20 AM ET | 06-20-2007

Paul Mooney mentioned in the Juneteeth segment how freed slaves adopted European surnames. I understand that white people did sleep around; so some of the freed slaves were born with European names. However, are there African Americans who want to change their European surnames to traditional African ones? If so, why? If not, why not? Are African Americans content with their European surnames?

Sent by Steve Petersen | 11:49 AM ET | 06-20-2007

Oddly, in discussing why it took 2 years for the slaves of Galveston to learn about the emancipation proclamation, there was no mention that Galveston, up until the very moment when General Gordon rode into the city, was under Confederate control.

While, the emancipation proclamation freed all the slaves in land that the confederate???s controlled, none of those slaves could be freed until union troops reached them. For Galveston (and most of Texas) this took the rest of the war.

I found the segment to be kind of silly.

Sent by S. G. | 4:14 PM ET | 06-20-2007

I agree S.G. As a black man and native Texan I am well aware of juneteenth and its history. I am a little offended that anyone assumes that the emancipation proclamation actually freed any slaves.

While the proclamation was effective in 1863, slave owners who were willing to pick up arms and start a civil war were not inclined to obey the union. Slaves were only freed by force of arms of the United States of America. When that freedom came depended on when American forces reached them.

BTW I do not consider confederates to be American though they might make good loyal bushies.

Sent by Greg Stephenson | 5:38 PM ET | 06-20-2007

To Tom: re Wagner. Could be. I did an interview years ago with the great conductor Sir George Solti and he had a very great love of Wagner (which I do not share) I remember we talked about it.. and re: Juneteenth..good points about the fact that a piece of paper does not a free people make....Shout out to the TEXANS..got a better idea for next year? who should we invite as guests/experts/discussants? (and I still want to know what's on the menu)

Sent by Michel Martin | 11:42 PM ET | 06-22-2007