Editor’s Letter

CEO and Executive Editor of the Montecito Journal Media Group

Our Forefathers,

Forecasters? Forthright? I wrote this letter July 4th-5th, 2020. Growing up, Independence Day was one of my favorite holidays. It was a celebration of the strong shoulders upon which this great nation was built; a celebration of the principles our Founding Fathers fought for and a celebration of the Founding Fathers themselves. The food was great and plentiful, the fireworks were magical, and when I’d rewind my memory, without exception my July 4ths past looked like they were torn from the pages of National Geographic.

Montecito 4th of July

After moving to Montecito full time in 2009, my family enjoyed driving our 1928 Ford Model “A” pickup in Montecito’s July 4th Parade. My husband is a horrible maintainer of cars, so I remember the 4th as the one day of the year that car worked – helped by the fact that the parade was sloped downhill so we had gravity on our side. Years we couldn’t revive that car, when I was on the School Board, we loved marching in the parade with MUS. One year our family was even offered to hold the school banner and lead the parade. We did so proudly.

Our family in the afore mentioned 1928 Ford Pickup -- not moving, as usual

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This year the 4th felt different for many reasons. There were no official fireworks. It’s forbidden to gather in large groups because of COVID. It’s also hard to gather because our nation, and even our local citizenry, is divided.

Independence Day, which started as a celebration of our departure from an unfair British system of taxation and the declared independence of the American colony, has become a catch-all for patriotic tropes from the Founding Fathers to Mount Rushmore to the Statue of Liberty, to flag masks to flags-instead-of-masks. This year, I’ve noticed myself starting to have a different reaction to patriotic symbols which have been clashed My daughter at a 4th of July celebration past over, subverted and weaponized by both sides in a way I’ve never before seen in my lifetime.

On Saturday the 4th I woke up to an Instagram post by Shaun King, the civil rights activist who often speaks for BLM, that basically said “F” the Fourth, it’s an arcane symbol of white supremacy and exclusion. And “F” the Founding Fathers. EDITOR’S LETTEREDITOR’S LETTER Page 344