🗽 I’m done celebrating Independence Day
Every 4th of July, Americans celebrate Independence Day, the anniversary of the day we declared independence from England on July 4, 1776.
We celebrate the birth of our country and the American way of life by donning red, white and blue clothing, proudly flying the American flag, over-indulging on food and alcohol, and shooting off fireworks to celebrate our freedom.
Photo Credit: Alex Porter https://www.instagram.com/aporter/
This Independence Day is different for me
Just over a month ago, the US erupted in protest for Black Lives Matter. Leading up to the protests, our BIPOC neighbors were disproportionately dying of COVID-19 due to underlying injustices and lack of services and accurate information.
Then America witnessed a White police officer casually murder George Floyd in Minneapolis over $20 while his colleagues stood around. Police killed him on the street while video rolled, knowing there would be no repercussions for the officers involved. We then learned about Breonna Taylor who was asleep in Louisville, Ahmaud Arbery who was jogging in Atlanta, and countless others. The country erupted in anger.
I’m no longer proud of US
I am embarrassed by how Americans are behaving today and ashamed of the systematic oppression even I turned a blind eye to until recently. The world is appalled by our behavior.
I cannot believe public safety and mask-wearing have been turned into a religious and political weapon and that more than 130,000 Americans have died of COVID-19. That’s roughly 25% of worldwide deaths and it was completely preventable. Did you know Vietnam had 0 deaths from COVID-19?
Living in Seattle, in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, where CHOP has now been taken over by Police, I have seen how the Police treat people firsthand (this past Thursday if you need an example) and I have seen how their press releases exaggerate the circumstances or leave out details to shape public opinion.
And after weeks living with the police firing rubber bullets, flash bangs and fireworks at my friends and neighbors, more fireworks is the last thing my pets and I want to hear.
How can I celebrate America when an American drove a car into a crowd of protesters last night in Seattle sending two people to the hospital in critical condition? The saddest part is the comments and reactions on social media ridiculing and laughing at the protesters, putting everything else above their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
Looking to leaders of the past
I’m obviously not the first to feel this way, and everything I just listed was from 2020 alone. These are not new concerns though. Frederick Douglass was born a slave in the US and was a leader in the abolitionist movement. On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave one of his most famous speeches, “What, to the Slave, is Independence Day?”
Frederick Douglass
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.
You can listen to the original speech, read the transcript, or watch Frederick Douglass’ decedents recite excerpts of the speech here:
We’ve got a long road ahead, but I am hopeful
The problems we face are enormous. And in an environment of division, lies, mistrust, partisanship, hate, and bigotry, it’s hard to imagine us making much progress against the problems we must work together to achieve.
I am still hopeful. Overall public opinion on racism is shifting quickly and people are working at all levels to figure out how to build a better country. I am hopeful this is similar to the seismic shift we saw in the last decade for LGBT rights.
I stand with the protesters. In Seattle, we demand our City government:
✊ Reallocate funding from police to social services.
We have a huge budget deficit and the police cannot deal with every problem as their only solution is to send people to jail or the hospital. Watch this to begin learning about what “Defund the Police” means.
✊ Release our neighbors who have been arrested by police during peaceful protests from jail.
Protesters exercising their first amendment rights should not be forced to carry around felony charges when the police clearly escalated conflict in many instances.
Read more about these demands and sign the petition at https://tinyurl.com/defundSPD.
These protests are just the beginning of a long process of fixing the injustices of the past. Unfortunately, the goals have not been achieved, and people are getting tired of the protest. If that includes you, please take a closer look at what the protests are demanding and how you can use your skills and network to help get that done. Most importantly, think about what “getting back to normal” means for Black people and then decide which side of history you are on.
We can do this, but it will take a lot of work, and more than just sharing memes on social media. We all need to become Anti-Racist. Expose and share injustices you see, march to show the city we stand together in these demands, donate to Black charities, talk to your friends about race, talk to your family about race, and most importantly, be introspective about your own internalized racism.
It’s not easy, but it’s necessary for all of us to change if we want to be the America we have always celebrated on the 4th. If we all do this, we’ll have something even bigger to celebrate in the future on the 4th of July.
💗✌🌎
Sunset in Seattle — Credit: Alex Porter — https://www.instagram.com/p/BnAxC1_AxJr/
