Music, confetti and fireworks fill Main street as the American flag waves in the wind. Hundreds crowd the streets and echoes of laughter fill the air. However, I couldn’t help but wonder what exactly are they celebrating? Are they celebrating independence from a tyrant nation, the idea that “freedom” in 1776 was now obtainable or that we conquered our oppressors? I find it difficult to celebrate America as a great nation when we are surrounded by inequality and suffering. Are we knowingly participating in a great disservice of our history- a complete ambush? As America annually celebrates conquering it’s oppressors while at the same time brushing over the genocide of Native American’s and captivity of our fellow man, I can’t help but feel anything less than joyous.
In 1865 victory bells rang loudly when Lincoln announced the abolition of slavery. But the fatal caveat, the same men who cried victory are the same men who intended freedom to be synonymous with abolition. If man were truly free, how do we explain Black Codes, convict leasing, lynching, Jim Crow, the KKK, COINTELPRO, Black Panther Party, poverty, predatory mortgages, mass incarceration and Black Lives Matter? If man is truly free, then why do we have a history of resistance?
The definition of freedom infiltrates every aspect of how we conduct our daily lives, how policy is structured, how stereotypes are molded and how war is justified. So when we say, “America, the land of the free” what exactly does that mean?
Challenge The Narrative 