Independence Day

There are so many people to thank for the progress and success of this country. The Native Americans who kept the Pilgrims alive and then paid the ultimate price. The enslaved Africans who worked for free from 1609 to 1865 to build the wealth of the South all the while suffering innumerous atrocities and whose descendants are still suffering from discrimination, racism and prejudice. The Chinese who worked in the Southwest building the railroad for close to slave wages and whose descendants are still not called Americans. The Mexicans who are toiling in the hot sun as migrant produce pickers, being nannies and gardeners to the rich and then having to justify their presence in the US. There are many rights and liberties that are taken for granted (like civil liberties, human rights, women’s rights, voting rights, and labor rights) and we forget weren’t always available. The independence of America continues everyday. We are free to think, be, and behave as we wish. We are allowed to be any religion we want, do any occupation we want, and read any book we choose. We are allowed to investigate our desires, carnal or epistemologically. Independence Day should not only be celebration of our fortuitous battle with Great Britain, but the celebration of our daily freedoms which are denied to many people across the world.

(Too much?)