Amidst another round of the yearly patriotism-without-critical-analysis hoopla that comes with this week, I find myself still inclined to agree with Fred. I ask this country the same question he did: “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?”
(Read, in preset context: “What, to African Americans and other people of color, immigrants discriminated against, and those oppressed by this country generally, is your Fourth of July?”)
On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave an address in Rochester, NY that probably surprised his audience with its tone. To be sure, Douglass’s speech includes very clear expressions of hope: “Notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented, of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country.” However, such expression carries strength only because it comes after a sharp critique of the country’s continued brutality toward blacks, and an injunction against expecting blacks to have fervor for celebrating the country that oppresses them:
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 [sic], 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.
Why complain, you may ask, since some African Americans are doing relatively well now? Obviously, the former slave Douglass was better off at the time of his speech than most other African Americans. Yet he found it impossible to turn a blind eye to the plight of the majority of his people and lose himself in the unbridled worshipping of a country that kept his folk oppressed—in the north and south. The fact that he had attained a measure of fame and status no more erased the need for anti-racist action at that time than does the fact that an African American has now gained the White House erase the need for such action today. Sure, we’ve put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this country—through labor, military service, etc.—and need to remind society of such. That, however, makes the holiday all the more a slap in the face of oppressed people collectively.
Yet we who do not get lost in a red, white and blue wave of hysteria are oft considered hateful and unappreciative. We not only still suffer the consequences of this country’s racism; we find ourselves with the same lament, cited by Douglass, as that of the Hebrew exiles: “For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth…” (Psalm 137:3) (Read: “The country that has built itself on our backs and still systematically oppresses us expects us to keep our mouth shut about injustice and dance and celebrate as if nothing is wrong.”)
Consider the relevance of Douglass’ address: “Your national greatness, swelling vanity”—a fact that people across the globe today try to impress upon the US when it speaks of how wonderful a nation it is while simultaneously invading and exploiting at will. “Your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence”—especially, in today’s context, considering the tyrants’ torturers are often trained by the United States, and the tyrants’ governance and wealth are in lockstep with US interests. “Your boasted liberty, an unholy license,” today used to continue wrongfulimprisonment (think of Troy Davis, Mumia Abu Jamal, et al.), migrant detention and abuse, slavery in the fields, and more.
Though we could easily continue to list the pertinent parallels of Douglass’ speech for our present context, the address itself stands as a comprehensive indictment of this country’s hypocritical injustice both then and now. As an African American whose people, on the whole, still suffer from past and present systematic racism and economic oppression, I, like Douglass, must look askance upon participation in the euphoric commemoration of the fourth of July.
[all quotations from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2927t.html unless otherwise noted]