Let’s talk about freedom. Let’s talk about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Let’s talk about the right to breathe. The words I keep landing on are naive, ignorant - selfish, perhaps - self-indulgent, indeed, to tell oneself that July 4, 1776, was a day that signified freedom for all Americans.
I think of all the ways this does not apply, even to me. I am a woman, and white women didn’t get the right to vote until 1920. Women of color, decades later. I am a mixed race woman, and the landmark Loving V. Virginia case that allowed couples of different races to marry in our country wasn’t passed until 1967. I am a bisexual woman, and the right to love who you choose without threat or hatred is still contested in this, our free nation. And that’s just me - a white-passing, cisgender American citizen. I have the right to vote - thousands of immigrants, felons, and the victims of voter suppression do not have that same right. What does it mean to celebrate the 4th of July when children are in cages, black men and women are murdered in the streets and in their own homes by the people who are supposed to protect us, and our president is attempting to launch a culture war in the midst of a pandemic? What does it mean to celebrate independence when gathering to celebrate would sacrifice thousands of Americans (most of them BIPOC) to a virus that we still do not know how to combat? What does it mean to call freedom the right not to wear a mask, not the right to not be shot in your own bed? I don’t hate America. I still believe that this is a county that could represent the best hope of what a nation could be. I watched Hamilton last night with my family, and the story still warms the cockles of my cold, dead heart. A nation founded by immigrants, against tyranny and oppression, in which we have the chance to build equal opportunity for all, take care of one another, and have a say in how we are governed. But I can’t help but think how much my understanding of America has changed since 2015, when I first listened to the soundtrack. I can’t help but think of the ways in which we still have not achieved those goals. We had a different president back then. I was complacent back then - I wasn’t paying attention to the atrocities committed by our governments and institutions of power against vulnerable Americans. And then, the atrocities seemed to get a lot worse (or I started to notice them more). I’m going to celebrate the 4th of July today by doing the long, arduous work of relearning the definitions of freedom and liberty that I have been taught. One nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all - I don’t believe any part of that statement to be true anymore. We are many nations - Indigenous, immigrant, and interlocking, and to ignore the different ways we define this land is to be deliberately blind to any versions of America that are not born out of settler-imperialism. We are under many gods, and we are far from achieving liberty and justice for all. I’m not entirely sure I have a concrete idea of what justice should be. It is the 4th of July, and America is not yet free.
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journal entriessome poems, some prose, some in-between Archives
October 2020
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