This July 4th
This July 4th I woke in a state of curiosity and perplexity about this holiday, my freedoms and of course The Great Debate. I’ve been silently contemplating what type of man Biden is while simultaneously cooling in my perpetual state of rage at the ease with which our country has taken liberties away from women. I’m uncertain if I should celebrate this holiday as I do not believe I as a woman am afforded the liberties with which it endowed. Being what some would call “a nerd” I spent much of the morning reading and researching ideas and concepts. Thinking of my gender’s inequality and the celebration of this moment.
Just a few weeks ago I was asked to speak at Juneteenth events. It was then that I did a deep dive into the origins of the holiday and surmised that our narrative of celebrating the news of receiving the information of emancipation was fallacious. I termed it the Fallacy of Juneteenth, for it wasn’t a lack of information but a lack of will to emancipate the enslaved persons in Texas. I woke up wanting to contrast that holiday with July 4th. What kept coming to mind was Frederick Douglas’ speech in which we are often reminded of the quote “What to the slave is the 4th of July”. Admittedly I had never read the speech, so I paused for a moment to give it proper respect and read its entirety. I am awestruck.
Picture the occasion. A former enslaved person asked to speak to an audience of dignitaries including the President about the young country’s independence. I guess when the request was made of him to speak it was overlooked that he had obtained his freedom, the very freedom they celebrated, by escaping the inhumane system of torture, rape and murder called chattel slavery. The speech was delivered in 1852. A mere 76 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. He primed the audience about the young nation's desire for freedom. Douglas bequeathed praise on the nation's forefathers stating, “They loved their country better than their own private interests; and, though this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will concede that it is a rare virtue, and that when it is exhibited, it ought to command respect.”
This made me contrast Biden and Trump. The fact that it is so easily distinguishable as to which one possesses those virtues.
Douglas went on to further state, “How unlike the politicians of an hour! Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment and stretched away in strength into the distant future. They seized upon eternal principles and set a glorious example in their defense. Mark them!”
The phrase “eternal principles” resonated. Principles that leave a lasting impact on generations to come, our posterity. In 2024 those “eternal principles” would include principles that break the chains of poverty, ease the financial burdens of the middle class, and respect the right to a woman’s individual autonomy. Principles like protecting the air we breathe and the earth we live upon.
At a proper point in Douglas’ speech, he turned and contrasted the plight of the enslaved persons within this same country that rejoiced for its freedom while simultaneously denying this inheritance to its brothers and sisters. He appropriately used this day to turn the audience’s attention to not their joyous celebration but the mockery it brings to those citizens who are not afforded its protections.
“The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony.”
Contrasting these concepts with today's times, you may ask what is that great denial of justice and liberty. To those of us who are great empathizers and to those of us who hear the call of freedom becoming a distant voice, we mourn. Last week I was told the story of a 35-year-old woman who is desperate. She is trying to make the best healthcare decision in a world that gives her no options. She is pregnant with an un-viable fetus while simultaneously receiving chemotherapy for a cancer diagnosis. She is in poverty and has been abandoned by the child’s father. Because she lives in Arkansas, she is forced to somehow mitigate the circumstances of her life and health without any options. All I could do was listen. I am powerless, just as she. It leaves me to wonder, have we not learned anything about this holiday? Have we forgotten our great thirst for freedom?
If you only know Biden as an old man with a speech impediment, then you owe it to the cause of freedom to understand what he has done during this Presidency. During a time of civil unrest that mimics the state of the union during the civil war, President Biden has and will go down in history as one of the most effective Presidents of our lifetime. His Presidency has passed bipartisan legislation affecting global warming, infrastructure, the cost of prescription drugs, criminal justice disparities, women’s healthcare and for once a President's economic initiatives were designed to alleviate the financial burdens of the middle class. He has been a lifelong public servant. I remember President Obama once spoke about how Biden was financially stressed during the time his son, Beau, was being treated for brain cancer. A condition his father believes was possibly a consequence of exposure to military burn pits in Iraq. Yet Biden did not give up on America after suffering the greatest loss a parent could endure. Instead, he signed into legislation the PACT Act. The PACT Act is a law that expands VA health care and benefits for Veterans exposed to burn pits, Agent Orange, and other toxic substances.
Yet for all he’s accomplished, we noble democrats are eager to dispose of him because we run in fear of a bad debate. There is no comparison between Biden and Trump. To compare intellect, compassion, integrity and statesmanship, is to do a disservice to those very words. The fodder created by the republicans and perpetuated by the media for ratings, is in itself an act of revolt against our union. The best way to defend Biden is to educate yourself on what he has accomplished on behalf of the American people, not simply the elite. I’m reminded of those of us who were left out of the constitution. You could sum up those the framers intended to leave out, women, Indigenous people, enslaved persons and whites with no property. Biden has embraced the actual tenets of the Declaration of Independence while Trump has admittedly catered to the financially elite. But there is something else we don’t talk about or say out loud concerning the Biden legacy. Yes he is a white privileged man of his generation and you can pinpoint in the annals of his life when he reflected that privilege. But as in every human existence we must judge ourselves and others not by a single page, but by whether or not the chronology of our life exhibited growth. Perhaps to me one of Biden’s greatest accomplishments has been how he has exemplified racial and gender equality. We don’t talk about how he must have felt being an older white man who exhibited humility and grace as the second to a black commander in chief. Do you suppose he thought of how perhaps his ancestors viewed that role? He was a white man of his era and he humbled himself in that position. He then made the same sacrifice and stepped aside so that a woman could stand ahead of him and run for the Presidency. Further, he reached behind him and brought a woman, of color no less, and placed her in the second highest position while also nominating a black woman to the highest judiciary position possible. Biden has shown us what it actually means to include all Americans within the fabric of our democracy. Because of Biden we can say what “black jobs” truly are. We know because of Biden we WILL have the first woman President.Perhaps that is the real issue with his election.
But he had a bad debate…It is not only my duty as a democrat to support Biden, as an American, it is my PRIVILEGE.
Biden will be our nominee. The complexities of replacing him are too numerous. Our job is to support him and fight for ourselves. The first step is to learn who he is and all that his administration has accomplished. Because just like a marriage, you marry into a family. We elect an administration. On that criteria alone Trump and his gaggle of thieves, liars, and crooks, should send an utter jolt of fear and repulsion down the backs of every decent human being. I will conclude with the words of Frederick Douglas reminding us it’s time to fight for the values and freedom of today. Now is the time to work and get President Biden reelected.
“My business, if I have any here to-day, is with the present… We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. But now is the time, the important time. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. You live and must die, and you must do your work. You have no right to enjoy a child’s share in the labor of your fathers, unless your children are to be blest by your labors.”
- Delia Parker-Mims, Chair of DCDP
