Not My Fourth
Let’s cure a pound of patriarchy, shall we?
Who is even celebrating the 4th of July any more in this country? I haven’t celebrated this date in a decent number of years, ever since I had enough life experience to understand the hypocrisy that it is. And now this nation has existed for 250 years, having been installed by spilling the blood of native peoples and of peoples kidnapped from across an ocean. We call it “Independence Day” but we always leave off the subtitle: “Independence Day: when the oppressed became the oppressors.” (Listen, if white men of yore felt they were being oppressed by another white man of yore, who am I to say otherwise?) So I ask everyone to contemplate this question: What are we even celebrating? I know it’s not “the land of the free.” Have you looked outside lately? That land it most certainly is not. Our nation was founded on the murder, rape and enslavement of those who were not white and/or not male under the premise of “escaping tyranny.” Such brazen hypocrisy! It was hypocritical then and we see so many offshoots of the same hypocrisy today. So, no, I do not celebrate the 4th of July because I am not free. Most of my friends and family are not free. I have a hard time of thinking of people I know who are actually free. Every year I remember Frederick Douglass’ speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” and while we may no longer have enslaved people by name, very few of us can claim to be free from oppressive forces. And like so many humanitarian advocates from centuries ago, his words are still relevant today. That fact is infuriating. His words should be obsolete, something to learn and understand and invoke thoughts of “Wow, that sounds like crazy times. Can you believe that’s how it used to be? So glad that’s no longer relevant and we don’t have those issues any more.” But, no, this is not the case. We read his words and still relate to them and their meaning:
I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light 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. -Frederick Douglass, July 5th, 1852
In these 250 years we should have learned a thing or two about protecting freedom and not revoking it, removing shackles of oppression and not locking them into place, and working toward a society that values all human lives instead of one that protects criminals with large bank accounts. No, we simply shrugged off a monarch and installed our own “democracy” whose purpose has been, and continues to be, manipulated to favor some and oppress others. Those in power are favored and they in turn decide who to oppress. For all of the evolutionary potential that human beings possess, it is now as it was 250 years ago: money means power, power means freedom, and it's every white man for himself. Existing in this nation does not grant freedom, even though that is what was promised. Being part of the work force and society of this nation does not grant freedom, even though that is what was promised. For 250 years the United States of America has actively pushed back against any progress made to free all of its people. Slavery was abolished and we entered Reconstruction after the Civil War, but that was met with Jim Crow laws, rendering the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution essentially obsolete. The Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s was an answer to Jim Crow oppression, and that progress has also been met with significant obstacles since. We have state-sanctioned murder of citizens by state and federal agents, disproportionately affecting people of color, harkening to how our nation was founded in the first place: on the backs and with the blood of Black, Brown and Indigenous peoples. Today, we have the Supreme Court reversing progress made, winding back the clock and re-installing a Jim Crow era once again. We cannot name ourselves “a nation of immigrants” while we either detain people in concentration camps or send folks to a different country, even if they are here legally.
So what are we even celebrating? What progress have we made, really? The Renaissance Period lasted around 300 years, a little longer than our nation has existed, and consider all that was accomplished in that same length of time. The Renaissance opened the way for the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment eras, important periods of social and cultural human evolution (people of color and women notably left out of the history books, of course). And what have we in our "great nation" done during a similar time frame? We are in the midst of another Civil War, only this time the weapon of choice is legislation, the soldiers are the gerrymandered officials in office, and the rest of us are doing all we can to avoid being caught in the crossfire. SCOTUS has declared “states’ rights” to enslave people, only this time those people are pregnant and performing the forced labor of gestation and birthing. Lynching never actually went away, it’s either happening outright or being renamed "excessive use of police force” and “citizen stand your ground laws.” We have renamed “slavery” to “incarceration,” renamed “Jim Crow” to “anti-woke,” renamed “misogyny” to “trad wives,” renamed “the ku klux klan” to “white Christian nationalists,” and on and on. It is imperative to understand our history because the same playbooks repeat, just with different titles. The tools of oppression evolve, but not the humans wielding them. It is beyond shameful.
For the steps we take toward becoming a better nation, it seems only a matter of time before some man-children are put in power and knock down everything we built. Would you be surprised to know that for the majority of our nation’s existence women have NOT had the right to vote? Well, don’t worry because the man-children are hard at work with the Save America Act threatening the 19th Amendment. (Save America from what? Women? That tracks, sadly.) We have seen this administration burn the 1st, 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to a crisp so why not the 19th? We have had 250 years to evolve into a nation worthy of celebration, and yet, here we are, not very far from where we started and moving backward. I read Frederick Douglass, Matilda Gage, Sojourner Truth, and other historical figures fighting for humanitarianism in our tyrannical nation and see how very little distance the needle has actually moved. We should be ashamed to relate so well to those who were fighting for freedom centuries ago. We should be ashamed to see the same human rights violations under different guises. People, both military and not, fought and died not only to protect freedom, but also to achieve it in the first place. Still so many of us are not free, and while I value our military and those who serve, it is reprehensible that we send people to war and some die protecting a nation that has made a mockery of our Constitution. The Commander in Chief is a convicted felon who pisses on our democracy daily. This is not what honorable and free nations do.
So I agree with Mr. Frederick Douglass and denounce this holiday. It is not my holiday, but I dare say we can take it back. Who’s with me?
WE THE PEOPLE, JULY 4th, 2026:
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen fifty United States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people The People to dissolve the political bands which have connected oppressed them with by another others, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of humankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation dissolution.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men peoples are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men People, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them the People under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies States; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain current President of the United States is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has committed multiple felonious crimes including but not limited to sexual assault and child rape.
He has forbidden his Governors Congress to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has also imprisoned entire families, who are otherwise here legally. He has repeatedly denied due process regardless of legal status.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges and Justices dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New unnecessary Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has also fired necessary Officers and eradicated necessary Offices.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. These Armies are murdering innocent people in the streets.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us For ignoring insurrection and pardoning those who have committed the same:
For protecting them any he deems an ally, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders, sexual assault, or other felonies which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all various parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences without due process or cause:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our own nation to a political polarization that he hopes will incite another Civil War. frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince man whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler president of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish more conservative brethren compatriots, especially those in support of the current president. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity basic human decency, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation dissolution, and hold them, as we hold the rest of humankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies States, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies States are, and of Right ought to be, of the People, for the People, and by the People, free from tyranny and oppression. Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence humanitarianism, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
We must:
Impeach, convict and remove from office the current POTUS for crimes committed against humanity and our nation
Set term limits for Supreme Court Justice appointments
Expand the Supreme Court
Ensure the equal representation of voters by fair and honest district mapping
Eradicate the filibuster
Eradicate the Electoral College
SO SAY WE ALL:
Colorado:
Leah Torres, MD MS
