Frederick Douglass famously asked "What, to the slave, is the fourth of July?" I think most people have heard of this speech, but few have actually read it. Click on the link, if you're interested -- it is quite long. I'm going to pull an excerpt:
My subject, then fellow-citizens, is American slavery. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slave’s point of view. Standing, there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery—the great sin and shame of America!
Note, however, that in the quite lengthy first part of the speech Douglass acknowledged the importance of the date to full citizens of the nation, and the audacity and courage that the Declaration of Independence represented and demanded in order to be brought to fruition. His main idea was that the same revolutionary daring and commitment was necessary at that moment. At this moment we face the same urgency.
Remember that for all their high flown rhetoric about equality and human rights, the authors of the Declaration were the profoundest, most egregious hypocrites. Thomas Jefferson's hypocrisy was far more monumental than his memorial. The new nation and its rhetoric were made for white, Christian men of property -- that property including human beings. Jefferson availed himself of his own property for sexual gratification as well as toiling on his farm. Women were not citizens, no for that matter were poor men of any race, and the indigenous people of the continent were not even people.
We've come some distance since then, at terrible but necessary cost. But now we are on the brink of falling back 150 years, indeed of finding ourselves in an even worse place than that. Most Americans, today, do not want to undo the centuries long struggle for equality, justice and inclusion; but the minority who do are scheming to seize power, abolish the republic, and impose their cruel will on people who they irrationally despise. We must recognize our peril, name it, and conquer it.
That, to me, is this fourth of July.
1 comment:
98% of the people in this country are immigrants or their descendants. (At least 85% if you exclude folks who didn't come here by choice.) Regardless of their ethnicity or country of origin the vast majority have become loyal Americans. If you have ancestors who were Irish, German, or Italian, for example, they were likely hated at one time. (My German grandfather would have been tarred and feathered at one point during WWI if the banker hadn't revealed that he bought more War Bonds than anyone else in town.)
Now its the turn of those groups that have recently been villianized by the rabid Right. Look at the number of remarkable Americans right now whose roots are hispanic, Vietnamese, middle eastern / Muslim, Chinese, Japanese, Pakistani, or Indian. Notice the number of minority doctors and scientists who get interviewed on the media. Heck, a recent Muslim refuge even got elected to Congress, and Journey's lead singer is Filipino.
Basically, anyone who is afraid of immigrants doesn't have faith in the power of America to win any person over to its side. I question their faith in their own country.
Even the groups that we have treated most shamefully - the original posessors of this land for at least several millenia and those who were brought here as capital in order to increase the wealth of their owners - have for the most part become patriotic Americans. Many even fought heroically in wars that mainly benefited the interests of the folks who screwed them.
I suspect that the real reason people oppose immigrants is not because such folk are worse they are, but because they are better! Anyone willing to pull up stakes and move to an alien culture where he or she has few friends and may not even speak the language has to have a certain amount of courage - and confidence that she can compete with people who have far more advantages and privileges than he does. She'll just out-work and out-think them. So, rather than welcome some great new additions to our Team they just hide under their MAGA hats, and clutch their AR-15's.
Pussies!
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