Can we still celebrate the Fourth of July?
Some federal holidays are not controversial. Who objects to New Year’s Day? Or celebrating America’s war dead on Memorial Day? Or recognizing the economic contributions of workers on ‘Labor Day’? And saying thank you to our military personnel on Veteran’s Day? And who is not prepared to give thanks for something on Thanksgiving Day? Christmas, despite its origin, has essentially become, for many Americans, a non-religious mid-winter holiday — ironically restoring the event to its pagan roots.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Washington’s birthday (a.k.a. Presidents’ Day) celebrate actual great Americans. Note: Racist conservatives once resisted MLK Day. But they have now embraced him as a gun-toting Republican. The GOP cemented this cynical Black outreach by unanimously voting for the recognition of Juneteenth in the Senate, with only 14 dissenters in the House. Columbus Day is on the outs as more of us celebrate the commemoration as Indigenous People’s Day.
This leaves the Fourth of July. The day we celebrate the birth of a great nation. But the last six years have made this a hollow memorial. How do you celebrate a country dominated by a bigoted, fearful, xenophobic, misogynistic, angry, theocratic minority?
For many years the Fourth of July had been observed in a country where slavery was legal, then in a country where blacks and whites were separate and unequal. It was long observed in a country where women were considered second-class citizens. And for the entire history of the Fourth of July, America has been a country that decimated its indigenous population and despised each new generation of immigrants.
But the difference between that America and this America is the sense that, no matter how bad things were in the old America, the country, however slowly, was moving in the right direction. Congress enacted civil rights and voting laws to blunt the worst excesses of racist states. SCOTUS desegregated schools. Women were leaning in and gaining entry into historically male domains like business, the law, and politics. And the LGBTQ+ community gained the right to marry, among other legal protections.
But the last six years have been very different. America is in bad shape, and it is getting worse. The Supreme Court stripped women of a 50-year-old constitutional right. The Court made carrying a gun easier anywhere in the US, just as homicide rates are skyrocketing everywhere. The six conservative Justices show more respect for corporate profits than they do for people. And as the pace of global warming picks up, they have opened the door for increased CO2 emissions. And, in all likelihood, next year will be even worse.
In the 2023 Court session, they will probably enable state legislatures to ignore the votes of their citizens. Democracy, the core value underpinning the American political construction, has never been more threatened in American history. And it is not unreasonable to believe that America may become, in a few years, a full-fledged tyranny of the minority.
So I ask this question: "Can we still celebrate the Fourth of July?"
The answer is 'yes'. But not to celebrate America as it is today. But instead to honor the ideal of America. With the wish that America, sooner rather than later, will be like Germany and Italy in 1945. Countries that were no longer tyrannies — and which had started reestablishing individual freedoms.
We can also celebrate actual great Americans — not to be confused with Fox News ‘great Americans’. People who have marched for other people's rights. Americans who have volunteered and donated to charities. First responders — and citizens who read to children in libraries while wearing dresses. And so many more.
We can celebrate the self-made, like Andrew Carnegie, a Scots-American who arrived in America as a 12-year-old school dropout — before making a fortune. And who then donated 90% of his wealth to fund schools and libraries. Or Madam C.J. Walker, who was born into domestic service - but became America’s first Black female millionaire by founding Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company - an entity that made hair products for Black women. In 1912, this tough-minded woman told the National Negro Business League.
"I am a woman who came from the cotton fields of the South. From there, I was promoted to the washtub. From there, I was promoted to the cook kitchen. And from there, I promoted myself into the business of manufacturing hair goods and preparations. I have built my own factory on my own ground.”
Walker also used her money to fund scholarships for Black girls and sponsor Black schools, churches, and the arts.
We can celebrate scientists and inventors. People like Taiwanese American, Peter Tsai, inventor of the N-95 respirator. Chinese-American, Min Chueh Chang, who with John Rock (Catholic-American) and Gregory G. Pincus (Jewish American), invented the birth-control pill. And Washington Carver, born into slavery in the early 1860s, whose contributions to agriculture and environmentalism led Time magazine to call him the ‘Black Leonardo’ in 1941.
In social activism, we recognize Mexican Americans César Chávez and Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the National Farmworkers Association. And English American, Jane Addams, a reformist who started the profession of social work and established Hull House for immigrants in Chicago. She also co-founded the ACLU and was the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. And when she died in 1935 was the best-known public woman in the country.
In sports, we can reflect on Jackie Robinson, who broke the Major League Baseball color line in 1947. And Sandy Koufax, a Jewish American who, at 36, was the youngest player ever elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. And German American, Lou Gehrig, the ‘Iron Horse’, played 2,130 consecutive games before taking himself out of the lineup as he succumbed to the ravages of ALS.
Nothing is as quintessentially American as the movies. And the movie business was founded largely by Jewish Americans, including Samuel Goldwyn, Marcus Loew, Louis B. Mayer, the four Warner brothers, Adolph Zukor, and David O. Selznik. While Philo Farnsworth, a Mormon American, invented much of the electronic technology of early TV. In the 1960s, Polish American Paul Baran conceived the concept of ‘packet switching,’ the technology that underpins the internet. And we can thank Larry Page, a Protestant/Jewish American raised in a secular home, and Sergei Brin a Jewish American originally from Russia, for founding Google.
James Baldwin was one of America’s greatest writers. Bayard Rustin organized the 1963 “I have a Dream” rally in Washington. Billie Jean King was the #1 female tennis player in the world for six different years. And in 1972 was the first woman and the first tennis player to be named Sports Illustrated Sportswoman of the Year. Mary Trump proves that the family is not 100% evil. They are all gay Americans.
No one’s impact on global architecture in the last century has been greater than Chinese-American architect I.M.Pei. And another Chinese-American, Maya Lin, submitted the winning design for the Vietnam War Memorial when she was a 21-year-old Yale undergraduate.
These people represent a minuscule fraction of the Americans who have contributed so much to the best of America. And it is these people and many others who have made America the vibrant melting pot celebrated in the imagination.
No bunch of mentally deficient and morally corrupt brutes, or their baying base of mindless morons, will ruin my appreciation of all that is great in America. So I raise a glass to the USA and the Statue of Liberty. You go, girl.