It’s Hard Being Black In America During July 4th

There’s a disturbing dread that comes with celebrating a legacy of racism and colonialism

“I love America the way I love my family — I was born into it. And there’s no escape out of it.”

Author, Ta-Nehisi Coates

There are a few special days each year that fill me with dread and anxiety — July 4th being one of them. It’s a day that has a special ickiness anytime it’s brought up. For many Americans, specifically white Americans, it’s a celebration of their home country and the time-honored values of their home.

However, it is a very festive holiday. A day brimming with joyful attitudes and enough “America fuck yeah” energy to make even the most bitter citizen become patriotic. A day where brandishing your AR-15 is as patriotic as loving your wife and the American flag. And like many people, you want to be a part of something fun and cheerful.

So, naturally, I attended a local parade that was celebrating our star-spangled country.

It was teeming with the American showmanship in a way that filled with me with overwhelming sense of dread. I live in an area that’s predominantly white, and as such, they were the vast majority of people in attendance. I witnessed streets filled with gleeful white families wanting to celebrate their newly-vaccinated pandemic freedom. There were kids playing with toy rifles that I once considered cute and empowering. However, with the rise of mass shootings and right-wing NRA politics that led to the Capital Hill riot, it’s hard to look at them and not see future violence in the making. The area is also sprawling with police, and as a black minority in a predominantly white neighborhood, it’s a recipe for racial profiling and a BLM moment waiting to happen.

I’m also a military member and one of the many minorities that serve America’s beloved armed forces. However, outside my uniform, I’m no different from any other black man on the street. Sure, everyone tells me “thank you for my service” and occasionally pays for my meals as an act of goodness, but that only feeds the internal anxiety in my head.

“Are they thanking me, a man that is serving his country or are they thanking the American flag that I serve under?”

I absolutely want to believe that people accept me and are genuinely thankful for my service. But when you witness harrowing footage of the knee on George Floyd’s neck, among countless other unjust deaths of black and brown Americans, it’s hard not to be pessimistic even in the face of such acts of positivity.

Frankly, July 4th is just American-flavored PTSD for many black Americans.

Land Of The Free?

For many minorities, specifically black Americans, it’s a day filled with hard reminders about the past. A past filled with the brutal racism of slavery and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Or the painful murders and conquest of lands that originally belonged to the original Native Americans that valued this continent as their own. Or the hardworking immigrants of America that came here for a better life only to find racism and xenophobia. Or the many social injustices that still go unanswered to this day.

If this sounds conflicting, that’s because it is.

Our modernized take on patriotism does it’s best to celebrate the good while sweeping the bad parts under the rug. We rejoice in fireworks and American showmanship while ignoring so much of the bad going on around us. The holiday is like one giant metaphor of the country as a whole. We love celebrating all of the good while downplaying so much of the bad shit that brought us here. It’s political theatre at it’s best — when nationalism and pride comes together for one special day of pretending-like-nothing-happened.

Oppression never died in America. Our oppressors just live on in new forms, some more subtle than others.

If I sound like a killjoy, I apologize. But this is the land we live in. A land of whitewashing and revisionist history that hides an insidious past. A country of social injustice that is constantly perpetuated by those that could care less about the other voices that reside in this country. Racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and many other issues still plague this country and it takes much sacrifice just to enact basic human decency.

Not even a year ago, we were in the middle of borderline civil war for a political election. One side wanted to push for social change and a more tolerant future — the other pushing back even harder with threats of mass violence, gaslighting minority groups of people with political conspiracy, and when everything else fails, outright police brutality. Even when right-wing extremists reached their burning point by rioting at Capital Hill, and killing the very Blue Lives they supposedly valued so much, our country once again closed it’s eyes and pretended like nothing bad happened. While a fair amount of Americans took umbrage with the events of that day, there are just as many that were proud in the violence that took place.

While I’m thankful to live in a country that grants me ample diversity and freedoms, it’s clear that this country is confused with what to do with such diversity.

Everyone is free to be who they are — until it offends someone else.

Truthfully, I do want to enjoy the festive activities because it is really fun to be a part of them. The food, the music, the patriotic energy filling the air and capturing the senses. The red, white, and blue décor adorning the neighborhood. Especially after enduring the chaos of 2020, it’s nice to celebrate reopening and just have fun again.

But it’s easier said than done when you live in a country so confused by it’s own identity. Where half of the country delights in my presence and gladly accepts me, and then there’s the other half that still speaks discrimination in unseen rooms. Rooms where they are allowed to be their true self without fear of reprisal — a room not meant for people like myself.

And as I participate in another July 4th, I hope I don’t have to learn the hard way what was said in those rooms.