“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.”
Taken from a long article here
For those who haven't read any of Douglass's writings recommended is his "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass".
A fine quote from Douglass is:
ReplyDelete"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men."
The US constitution says that all men are created equal, but it looks like the Black slaves, the Chicanos, and the Natives were created in inequality and without any rights
ReplyDeleteFrom birth there is inequality - depends where and into what segment of society you're born. How can we even pretend that there is a semblance of equality in society in the system we are currently stuck in? Whites are poor and homeless, women overall receive less pay than men, everything is limited by how much we have to pay - no pay, no get.
ReplyDeleteDouglass's claim of the sham of the event for slaves is also true for the 99+% of we who are wage slaves. What is life for us but fraud, deception and hypocrisy from the ruling class?