I ask the question again since people can't get it right, should black people celebrate the 4th of July when it didn't apply to our ancestors? Why should we celebrate it when the 4th of July had nothing to do with American "Exceptionalism?" The holiday isn't relevant to us, it wasn't fought for the freedom of my ancestors.
Yes, Bass, it IS relevant to Black people today. It's relevant because Independence day is not only about celebrating the founding of America; it is also about celebrating what that fledgling nation has become. Yes, America was stained by slavery; but slavery is no more. Yes, America was stained by Jim Crow, but Jim Crow is no more. There's something in the character of America, that is never at ease with injustice, and while we can't change the past,we can keep it from spoiling the present, or the future. It took a long time, too long, but Americans, White and Black, have worked to overcome the injustice, the bigotry, and the hate that blighted America. Black people have always been part of America, Bass; now, Black people are fully participating in America at last. Once, a Black man could not even reap the fruits of his labor; to day, Black men sit in the corporate boardrooms, and occupy the executive offices of major corporations; hell, some of them OWN those corporations! A scant generation ago, Blacks couldn't even vote in a lot of places; today, Blacks are Congressmen, and Senators; one even is the President of the United States! Black people did not get that opportunity all by themselves, nor did they get it because White people handed it to them. Black and White Americans worked side by side, to make that happen, because they recognized that our destinies are intertwined, and neither your race nor mine, can walk alone, or should have to, not in America. We can't change the past, but together, we
have changed the future. There is NO going back; there is only going forward, and we are not going to stop, until America really is the promised land, for all of us, and our children, and our children's children.
This nation is so grand, so big, and so diverse, that one can look at her from a lot of different angles. America is a glass half-full, or half empty. America is a land of promise, and a land of promise still unfulfilled. America is an ideal both flawed and flawless. America is that kind of nation, because Americans are that kind of people.
America is so free that all of us, Black or White, or any other race, are free to be slaves, if we wish; slaves to past wrongs and past grievances. That's our choice to make. We can wallow in self pity, or we can stand up, embrace what is good, oppose what is evil, and make a great nation and even better nation. We can curse the shadows of the past, or we can light so many candles those shadows disappear. We can be complacent, or give up, and say there's nothing more we can do, we can *****, and moan, and hurl recriminations at each other, or we can stand up look forward, and make this nation everything she can be. We can dwell on where we've been, or we can look back in wonder and say, "My God, look how far we've come! Let's keep going!" The real genius, and the real glory, of this nation, is that she CAN change, she CAN evolve, she CAN learn, and she CAN redeem her promise...and she's doing it!
None of us, regardless of where we're from or the color of our skin, have to be on the outside looking in, not anymore. We are all in this together, we all have a chance to participate, we all have a chance, to be all we can be. America is not yet where she ought to be, nor where she is going to be, but she's come a long way, from what she used to be, and that is pretty good, at that. Your race and mine built this nation; one as masters, one as slaves; now we are building it and living in it, as equals. That is worth celebrating, no matter what race we belong to.
Call Obama, he must not know about this!!!
