FIVE* THINGS

Off the top of Kal's head that he thought you ought to know about the Declaration of Independence

1. All “men” are created equal? No, all white men are created equal. The document speaks of liberty and destroying tyranny while slave owners are killing many.

2. It’s actually debatable whether we should have even signed it in the first place. British colonists dragged themselves into war with New France. One could argue they should pay the taxes rather than introduce anarchy and lose protection.

3. However, the colonies were founded by people seeking freedom, so they could not really let people on the other side of the ocean tell them what to do.

4. The whole document speaks of rights, but they did not give those rights to everyone.

5. I don’t really remember—this was like a school year ago. It wasn’t my station.

I don’t remember ever learning about the speech Frederick Douglass gave July 5, 1852, in Rochester at an event to commemorate the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I’ve been listening to the fourth season of The United States of Anxiety podcast, and the host’s tradition is to listen to a recording of James Earl Jones recite a selection of that speech. You can catch it at the end of the episode from June 26. I highly recommend all of Season 4’s work to discuss what is happening around us in terms of protests, decarceration, and more.

wnycstudios.org/podcasts/anxiety

From their About page, “The United States of Anxiety works to connect the present with the past. Underlying almost every cultural divide and fervent debate as we approach the 2020 election is one basic question: Who is the USA for?”

“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 sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, 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.”

-Frederick Douglass