Independence Day Through My Eyes

 “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…” -- Frederick Douglass*

Some people wonder why all Americans don't feel as if they have as much to celebrate on the 4th of July.  Well, let's look at it this way - it is a day that we are supposed to celebrate our ancestors and the role they played during this period in history.  Whereas many of my countrymen's forefathers were fighting for their freedom, they were simultaneously fighting for my forefathers to remain in bondage and for my foremothers to be raped by their forefathers.  How can I celebrate such a day when, had America remained a British colony, the slave trade would have ended decades earlier, all other things constant?  It is not that I hate America at all nor do I wish it any harm.  I love my country and I take ownership over it, even if all of its decisions have not been made with my best interest at heart. That is what it means to be a part of a democratic society. The past is the past and, though it cannot be changed, it must be understood.


This post does not speak to the sentiments of all blacks, possibly to none at all.  I only speak for myself.  Look at our shared history in this nation through my eyes.

Race is real.  Learn from it instead of running from it.

*Source: Brandon Jackson
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Litera scripta manet. - Unknown