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Racist regimes fail to see that by keeping the “other” enslaved, uneducated, poor and in want of opportunity they deny everyone the benefit of the great contributions that “other” has to offer.

Had Blacks in America been treated as Whites, the Unites States would have reached unimaginable heights of achievement in every field, achievements that would have touched the lives of people everywhere. Even in spite of the unspeakable injustice that Blacks in America had and still have to endure in the US, their achievements and contributions to America and the world are immense and too long to be counted. But racism is a byproduct of ignorance and stupidity and racist regimes believe that they possess something which people who are Brown or Black lack and in fact desire to achieve, as though there is something about “Whiteness” that is enviable. James Baldwin addresses this when he writes: “I cannot accept the proposition that the four-hundred-year travail of the American Negro should result merely in the attainment of the present level of the American civilization.” Merely!

One example of the intellect, spirit and moral fortitude from which America was fortunate to benefit in spite of the greed, stupidity and cruelty of slavery is Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass, gave a speech in Rochester, New York on July 5th, 1852 titled “What, to the Slave, Is the Fourth of July?” It is hard to imagine a more poignant question to ask during that time in US history and hard to imagine anyone more eloquent, qualified and better suited to answer that question than Douglass himself.

From time to time we all see, hear or otherwise experience something that gives us reason to pause. Something profound beyond anything we had expected. Reading Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple,” hearing Muhammad Ali explaining his refusal to fight in Vietnam to a handful of white Ivy League students and reading Frederick Douglass’ speech where he discusses “What, to the Slave, Is the Fourth of July?” were for me such experiences. So much has happened since Douglass gave this earth-shattering oration and at the same time, so much remains the same.

After a lengthy opening in which he compliments the Founding Fathers for their ideas, he says the following:

“I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July. Whether we turn to the declarations of the past or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.”

When Douglass made this speech, much like a prosecutor in a court of law, the crimes of the Unites States, though severe, were few in comparison. By 1852, the Unites States had been guilty of committing only two major crimes against humanity –the displacement and genocide of the Native American people, and slavery. Between 1852 and the present, the US had dropped nuclear bombs on Japan, imprisoned Japanese-Americans in internment camps, destroyed Vietnam murdering hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese in the process, destroyed Iraq murdering countless Iraqis in the process, supported the genocide of Palestinians by Israel, installed brutal dictators in Latin America and Africa, and on and on the list continues, all the while claiming it is bringing freedom and democracy and defending “our” freedoms.

Douglass goes on to accuse the Unites States of hypocrisy:

“You glory in your refinement of your universal education yet you maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful as ever stained the character of a nation – a system began in avarice, supported in pride and perpetuated in cruelty.”

If only there was a politician in America today with such eloquence and command of the English language, one would be hard pressed to find even one. Furthermore few politicians today posses such convictions and clarity. The system he speaks of is of course slavery, and though slavery is gone and illegal, the legacies of slavery live on and no reparations have yet been made to Black Americans. It has only been fifty years since the Civil Rights Act ended legalized discrimination in the US, the Voting Rights Act was passed to end the barriers that prevented Black Americans from voting, and since Affirmative Action was instated in the United States. All these were part of the effort to rectify four hundred years of brutality and injustice and so far they have barely scratched the surface. And yet there are already voices calling to repeal the voting rights act and end affirmative action. There are those who will claim that Blacks have been given enough and they need to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” like “everyone else.” Not only have these measures not been enough, not only will it take generations of enforcing these measures before is even close to being enough, until full reparations are made nothing will be enough.

Perhaps the most damning accusation made by Douglass is the following:

“You can bare your bosom to the storm of British artillery to throw off a three penny tax on tea, and yet wring the last hard-earned farthing form the grasp of the Black laborers of your country.”

Certainly when it comes to the welfare of white privileged people and the narrow interests of a few millionaires and billionaires, the US is ready to declare war. In the 1960’s US presidents had no problem sending young men to kill and die, in order to “defeat communism” in South East Asia yet they did little to fight the brutality and racism Blacks had to endure. As Muhammad Ali said to his detractors, “you won’t even stand up for me here in America and you want me to go somewhere and fight.” And today, as Arabs and Muslims are viciously attacked, immigrants fear deportation and thousands upon thousands of Blacks are sent through the school-to-prison pipelines, the US is wasting valuable resources fighting imaginary enemies in Iraq and Libya, Syria and Yemen, Afghanistan and Somalia creating nothing but misery and poverty in those countries and making rich, white men richer.

“You command all men to love, everywhere, to love one another, yet you notoriously hate (and glory in your hatred) all men whose skins are not colored like your own.”

And indeed what is racism if not hatred? What are intolerance and bigotry if not expressions of contempt to those who are different? How often have we heard it said that that Blacks are predators, that Gays undermine the morality of our society that Mexicans are rapists and drug lords, and that Muslims and Arabs are terrorists? “They” are never as good or as godly as the rest of us. In “The Fire Next Time” James Baldwin addresses these racist notions and writes, “The American Negro has the great advantage of having never believed that collection of myths to which white Americans cling.”

Frederick Douglass ends his Forth of July speech with a poem by William Lloyd Garrison, titled, “God Speed the Year of Jubilee.” And like the entire speech, the words of this poem ring true today as ever they have in the past:

“God speed the hour, the glorious hour

When none on earth

Shall exercise a lordly power,

Nor in a tyrant’s presence cower.” “Until that year, day, hour arrive

With head and heart, and hand I’ll strive,

To break the rod, and rend the gyve,

The spoiler of his prey deprive –

So witness Heaven!”

On this Forth of July may all Americans strive to break the rod and rend the gyve and make the world a better place.