$4th of July

In 1852 Frederick Douglass asked "What the the Slave is the 4th of July?"  He said, "I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony."

Strong words indeed, yet at the time they were necessary and important.  They still ring true to those in our nation today who have heeded the call of Lady Liberty and yet who cannot share the blessings which so many of us do.  The questions still remains for those enslaved in the sex trade, for those stuck in the fields providing cheap produce that we all enjoy, and for all those who live in fear of being sent back to countries that provide no hope for the future what exactly IS the 4th of July?  A hollow dream?  It is time to stop pointing the finger of justice at countries afar and instead take a look at ourselves and the injustices that plague and shame our nation and dim the freedom so many have slaved and died to provide.

Yes, we are a proud nation, but it is important to remember that it's been built on the backs of people who have often not enjoyed the same freedoms as those who so proudly wave the flags on the Main Street, USA.  In addition to the soldiers who have defended the nation,  it has been built on the backs of slaves, immigrants and migrants.  We, as a nation, would do well to remember that simple fact on this day of Independence.