I am an American; I was born and raised here. I love this country. It’s where my entire family has lived and will no doubt die here. America has many misgivings, and many things are not as they should be. For any persons who are DOS (descendants of slaves) know that we have given this country more than any other, our entire being. Our blood, sweat, and tears have been poured into this country to help make it great. We are The only race that who have come from distant lands that have fought in all of America’s wars.
We were here long before the so-called Indians. Long before any other nationality known to date; we were here! But today we are asked to come together and celebrate America in all of its greatness and accomplishments. Today is a time for festivities: today we have barbecues and concerts, we have reenactments of the founding father’s victories over the British, but in the midst of all those celebrations we as black people in this land forget that we have never been given our seat at the table. For we are the victims of brutality and vicious oppression that stifles our creativity, hinders us at every turn our full participation in the actual fruits of our labor.
We are made to never feel truly at home in the only land we know. We are outcasts in our own country. The land which we built with the sweat of our brow, and backbreaking labor for free through force. So the Descendants of slaves in this country should, on this day remember the words of our great elder Frederick Douglas when he said the following :
“This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn…for you to ask us to join you in celebration is “inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony.”
“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.” “If (we) celebrated the fourth of July, it would be treason, most scandalous and shocking, and would make me reproach before God and the world.” To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless…” 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. “
For me, I will never forget my real place in this country as it stands right now. Hopefully, things will change, but I don’t have high hope for it happening in my lifetime.
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