Eating grilled hot dogs and apple pie - yum! But it all feels kind of trivial compared to what we’re up against in 2020: the normalization of white supremacy, state-sanctioned violence against people of color, the normalizing of mass death by virus, massive income inequality. Blowing little bombs of colored sparks into the sky is pretty. I’ll be thinking about how fragile the American experiment has been, and remains. The only thing different about this year is that for the first time I’ve seen more Black Lives Matter signs than flags. Jabari Asim, author and director of the MFA program in creative writing at Emerson College Joy is best reserved for other occasions. Independence Day, as some call it, becomes another opportunity to reflect on the value of vigilance, the price we pay for any semblance of freedom. Freedom for black people in the United States has always been tenuous and contentious, and never separate from the realization that our white neighbors might turn against us, as they have in Tulsa, Rosewood, Boston, East Saint Louis. We just want to see the bright colors streaming underneath the dark sky. Even in past years when we attended our town’s fireworks display, we’ve watched under the common understanding that our purpose is not to celebrate. We don’t have a cookout, we don’t stick a flag on the front porch. July Fourth has never been a day that my family observes. Kellie Carter Jackson, professor of Africana studies at Wellesley College A Thin Blue Line flag waves in front of the Black Lives Matter banner at Somerville City Hall. I hope this is the year the prodigal son comes home. America is like a wayward child whom you will always love, but they just can't get themselves together. Patriotism for many black people, even black veterans, has always been complicated. What follows aren’t merely reflections about how we celebrate July Fourth, it’s about the existence of the holiday itself and what it says about our “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”Įvery year, as a Black American, I think about Frederick Douglass's famous speech, " What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" This summer, the feeling of liberation, citizenship and enfranchisement is particularly stunted. “Independence Day, as some call it, becomes another opportunity to reflect on the value of vigilance, the price we pay for any semblance of freedom,” writes author Jabari Asim in his piece. But what about all those people for whom the country's founding principles haven't yet been fully realized? For many Black Americans, in particular, this holiday is more complex. That stereotype is white America’s version of Independence Day. If there’s one thing we learned in the process of soliciting and reading these essays, it’s that July Fourth is far more complicated than backyard barbeques and fireworks. It features a handful of our regular writers sharing their work.) ![]() ![]() (Be sure, too, to listen to the radio piece that accompanies this post. What follows is a series of mini-essays, written by our contributors and readers. We wanted to try to capture this moment, and we knew one essay wouldn’t be enough. July Fourth this year comes in the midst of a pandemic, an economic depression, a national reckoning on racism and police brutality and the most divisive presidential campaign in modern history. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images) This article is more than 1 year old. Orange County Sheriff deputies maintain a police block as a firecracker thrown by a protester explodes behind them during a protest against the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd during the coronavirus pandemic on in Santa Ana, California.
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