What to ADOS is the Fourth?! What to any of us does this day mean?!

There is rarely a Fourth of July that goes by that I don't think of and/or read Douglass' "What to the slave is the Fourth of July?" I typically post it yearly as well. Last year, we were blessed with descendants of Douglass performing parts of his speech and reflecting on who they are and where we are today, as they relate to his speech. Today, I ask slightly different questions: what to the American descendants of slavery (ADOS) is the Fourth? What to any of us is the Fourth?
In a year where we've seen the symbolic victory* of federal recognition for Juneteenth while simultaneously witnessing state legislatures across the country and nationally elected folks attempt to shut down any conversations on race, racism, slavery's role in the founding and growth of this country, and real American history instead of American mythology, what to ADOS does this day mean? 

At a time when we've lost more than half a million (605,533 as of 11:25a on 7/5/21, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus tracker), yet businesses are being vicious about claiming folks are lazy and sitting on govt. benefits and despite those horrible numbers, we still can't get folks to think of their common fellow citizens AND themselves enough to fight the disease as united citizens, what does this day mean?
At a time when we are ALL still living on stolen land that was tilled and nurtured by stolen bodies, land that bleed with the lives of too many people of color to name, depending on what land you're on right now, what to us does this day mean?

At a time when Canadian First Peoples have uncovered at least 2 mass grave sites from residential schools and the bodies of hundreds of Indigenous people (mostly children), when current chiefs estimate that THOUSANDS of bodies are likely too be found, when Missing and Murdered Indigenous People can't even get accurate counts in these United States, when the first ever Indigenous Secretary of the Dept of the Interior Deb Haaland has called for investigations of residential schools in these United States to search for the same here, what to them does this day mean?
At a time, when legislatures are trying hard as hell to limit, minimize, reduce the basic existence of transkids and transpeople, what to them does this day mean?
At a time when states CONTINUE to try to pass laws demanding what women can and cannot, should and should not do with their bodies, what to us/them is this day?

At a time when merely looking or sounding foreign-born--too brown, too ethnic, too many non-English words, too much wrapped up hair, too many gods and goddesses, too much holding on to your parents, grandparents, and ancestors culture, too... whatever, ugh! 🤷🏾‍♀️ 🤷🏾‍♀️ 🤷🏾‍♀️, what to them, to all of us, does this day mean?

At a time when people seem to be getting stupider, more hateful, more divisive, and more traitorous while wrapping all of that hate in the stars and stripes, what does this day mean? 

At a time when the country is being overrun by people who would literally like to dismantle the barely-held-together institutions that purport to be these United States, who have been working at that dismantling for far longer than many realize, who would like to actually destroy what we're barely hanging on to, what to the rest of us who are trying to hang on does this day mean?

At a time when legislatures and even the fucking Supreme Court is hellbent on completely undoing every aspect of the Voting Rights Act, destroying the very essence of supposed democracies, what in the hell to any of us does this day mean?

I don't have (m)any answers just a lot of existential, reflective questions. I just find it hella hard to be excited on this day when so much of what's supposed to make this country a grand place to celebrate and appreciate is rapidly sliding down a razorblade into an alcohol river. Or perhaps we always existed in that alcohol river, but we were too drunk on delusions of grandeur and exceptionalism and fumes to realize the alcohol was burning and killing us.

Realtalk: "America never was America to me."** 

It has NEVER been the home of the free and land of the brave for Black Americans, Indigenous Americans, Queer Americans, Immigrant Americans, Asian Americans, Latinx Americans, women of any of these backgrounds--NEVER has been for anyone who wasn't wealthy, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, cishet, and male. Wealthy and white brought semblances of freedom that could be snatched away at the slightest turn. So...What freedom? What celebration? What Fourth? What Independence? For why?

In 1852, Mr. Frederick Douglass asked "what to the slave is the Fourth of July?"
And today, I ask what to the American descendants of slavery is the Fourth? 

What to the Indigenous Peoples is the Fourth? 

What to women is the Fourth? 

What to Latinx Americans is the Fourth? 

What to Asian Americans is the Fourth?
What to LGBTQ+ is the Fourth?
What to any of us is the Fourth?--the same as when Douglass asked.

Same shit, different century. 

Mild improvements, so MUCH further to go.

*“The white man will try to satisfy us with symbolic victories rather than economic equity and justice” – Malcolm X.

**from "Let America Be America Again"– Langston Hughes