The 4th

So, the 4th of July just happened. America’s day of independence from being a colony under England. And I was thinking about this holiday in the context of today’s current vibes.

We’ve got a convicted Cheeto felon & and genocidal declining president are campaigning for their 2nd term in office.

The U.S. government repeatedly clears legislation to send more funds to Isnotreal, who’s bombing the last safe zone left in the Gaza Strip (Rafah Crossing). In addition, they’ve blocked humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. Any aid that enters becomes a “Flour massacre” as starved Palestinians meet to get bags of flour to bake bread and are killed in the process. Also, people are kidnapped & tortured; in some cases, they aren’t released back to their families.

We’ve got millions of women, men & children who’ve died in the cobalt and coltan mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Where women are raped on an hourly basis. People are killed and their remains are sold in bags. Rebel groups funded by neighboring countries are killing & harassing Congolese people. They’re poor but rich in resources that the world has been stealing to power our technology & line rich people’s pockets.

We’ve got Sudan who’s projected to have one of the worst man-made famines by September 2024 as a result of the Sudanese Armed Forces & and the Rapid Support Forces killing Sudani people within the country’s capital & beyond. This crisis has gone on over 1 year. Any awareness & visibility of this crisis seems to barely reach past fellow Sudani people with Internet connection. And those who are caught filming or even have a phone on them are killed.

Hurricane Beryl is already proving to be a devastating storm to the Caribbean islands. Haiti is in turmoil as “gangs” commit violence amidst the resignation of their Prime minster or president. Haiti is a country created by enslaved Africans emancipating themselves & they have suffered for it ever since.

Last time I checked locals in Lahaina, Maui, annexed kingdom of Hawai’i are living in tents on the beach. There seems to be no progress on the island being rebuilt. TikTok users who live in or have loved ones living in Lahaina suggest that the fire that swept the island is being used as an excuse to take people’s home & land to sell as property to non-Hawai’ians.

Not to mention that the people of West Papua are being oppressed & killed by Indonesia. The people of Kanaky are being met with violence & cut off from the internet/world by France. They’re protesting France denying them the right to elections.

And circling back to the U.S., our rights regarding education, healthcare, reproductive rights, censorship, etc. are being scaled back gradually. A major plan called Project 2025 is gaining mainstream discussion about how right-wing &/or Republican politicians are wanting to basically strip our rights back so badly we’ll probably be powerless.

So I spent this 4th of July obviously grilling food & being with my family. But I’ve also wrestled with what that’s all supposed to mean to me?

I’m pro-Palestinian. They’re indigenous to the land since before the lifetime of Christ. They deserve to have full control of all occupied Palestinian territories. What Isnotreal is doing is against all international laws & morality. There really isn’t a 2-state solution with a group of people who are bent on wiping you & your people’s existence from the planet and from history. There is no reconciling. They need to be dismantled.

And I live in a country that not only politically supports & covers for them, but they also gives them billions to their military in Americans’ money. With this political support and money, they get to literally take Palestinian families’ homes, get free healthcare, divert most of the available water supply to themselves, and have locked Palestinians in textbook apartheid.

I was introduced to Palestine’s occupation & genocide through TikTok and Twitter. I know it’s bad to get news & information from social media apps. However western mainstream news is not truly objective. Watching news outlets in late 2023 push the “But HAMAS!!” angle proved that what civilians & on-the-ground reporters show is legit.

Naturally I want to support. I’ve donated and shown support through my own social media accounts. But something about today got me thinking. How can I show support for Palestine or Sudan or DR Congo et al when I’m eating grilled burgers & watching neighbor fire rockets into the night sky?

Like how as a Black American do I grapple with the fact that our country’s leadership is in full support of Isnotreal ethnically cleansing Palestinians? How do I crack through all of this patriotism & “You better stand for the flag” indoctrination? How would showing support of Palestinian liberation change anything?

There’s this pushback I struggle with when I see my Twitter tl full of users from different countries who’ve experienced colonialism and American imperialism.

At my heart I agree with their posts. America is arguably one of the worst terrorist organizations on the planet. We’ve ravaged countries on every continent. We’ve funded countries & organizations that’ll do our bidding, so our hands are clean of the destruction.

And we gloss over or re-word how things went & then teach it to youth in schools that we’re somehow the “good guys” protecting “democracy & freedom” around the world.

Even back in school I knew cognitively that wasn’t true. But also, I was in school during the Bush Admin post-9/11.

Standing for the pledge. Singing at the school Veterans’ day program. Watching high school classmates get office referrals for refusing to stand for the pledge. Watching my white peers mock or undermine the list of black names immortalized through police violence.

In my heart I want to outwardly express that what we’re watching unfold today is wrong. Nobody should be bombing Palestinians in Gaza strip, West Bank & Lebanon et al with impunity. America is wrong. We don’t protect democracy, we’re usually the ones destroying it both at home & abroad. Basically, Aaron Bushnell’s final sentiments.

But I’m internally fighting the “patriotism” I saw in post-9/11 public school. Standing for the flag. Ceremonies & programs for Veterans. In addition, the 2010s era of vitriol towards anyone not white, cis, male, Christian, a natural citizen, right or conservative-leaning etc.

It feels like I’m fighting deep ‘programming’ to even say that America is an imperialist nation or even that it sucks here despite my privileges. And I feel like I’m calling open season on myself to say that Black Americans shouldn’t be met with violence through poverty, environmental racism, discriminatory workplaces & laws, the prison system, etc. All things that I can see reflected in the occupation & genocide of Palestinians. It feels like I’m calling for getting shot.

But I feel oddly emboldened. I can’t ignore what my ‘heart’ says. But I won’t deny I say free all oppressed people of the planet & dismantle western/American imperialism with a tremble in my voice.

Despite how long I’ve known about it, my knowledge isn’t extensive of ongoing crises worldwide. I feel like I’d be spending my lifetime just unraveling every part of American history & lowkey propaganda I’ve been given. I want to do it, but it’s a Morpheus-type moment.

Once I fully know America’s true face that people see globally, I can’t go back into this bubble I feel Americans are in. Conveniently not knowing about around the world, but the world has to know about us. Some of it is intentional based on curriculum & media. And some of it is our individualistic view of the world.

Regardless, if you fully know what the U.S. is like to the world and its own people, you cannot go back into this cognitive dissonance.

This feels like a path I have to take but am I ready for all of that unraveling? Cognitively you know this country sucks & is an imperialist scourge on the planet (not the only one but the current biggest baddie). But it’s a wallop to fully realize. Yes, the country you live in is responsible for destabilizing most of the planet for our gain. Yes, the quality of our lives is at the expense of the global south & underdeveloped nations. Etc.

It’s not hard but like, it’s eye-opening. It’s shocking how it took videos of people pulling their injured loved ones out of gray rubble and mines and footage containing gunshots to drive it home. Even now, it’s not fully sunk in.

So here’s to popping this bubble.

F*ck the 4th of July.