Good Morning World!!
“We will shape and mold this Country or it will not be molded and shaped at all anymore.” – Nina Simone
It’s Independence Day, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels like this country is failing the majority of its people.
Right now, there are people, including children, being held in concentration camps run by our government. Millions of Americans can’t afford basic necessities like food, housing, or healthcare. Politicians steal billions and enrich themselves while ordinary people struggle to survive, and accountability is nonexistent. We have a president who lies openly and whose rhetoric has emboldened racist people to become louder, bolder, and, in some cases, more violent.
This doesn’t feel much like Independence Day.
And let’s not forget that when the Declaration of Independence was signed, Black people were not free. The lofty words about liberty and equality did not include us. The symbolism of this holiday has always been complicated because the freedoms it celebrates were never extended equally. Even so, there are people who would love to strip us of our citizenship, erase our history, and pretend this country belongs only to white people. It doesn’t.
We are Americans. We built this country. We fought for this country. We continue to move this country forward despite everything that has been done to keep us from doing so. “We the People” may have started as a phrase that only applied to white men, but today it means all of us. No amount of racism, revisionist history, or nationalist rhetoric is going to change that. This country belongs to every one of its citizens, whether some people like it or not.
Happy Independence Day! (Oh and make sure you tune in for my livestream “Chaos & Controversy with Kai!” )
~ Kai
