Ibram X. Kendi: “Patriotism on the Fourth of July is Resistance”

On this Fourth of July, [we] should be celebrating our ongoing struggles for freedom and not celebrating as if we are free. We should be celebrating our disobedience, turbulence, insolence, and discontent about inequities and injustices in all forms. We should be celebrating our historic struggle to extend power and freedom to every single American. This is our American project.

Because power comes before freedom, not the other way around. Power creates freedom, not the other way around. We can’t be free unless we have power. Freedom is not the power to make choices. Freedom is the power to create choices. And to have the power to shape policy is the power to create choices. That is why power is in the hands of the policy maker. . . . Our American project is not built on the idea that we became free in 1776 or any year thereafter, but that we are fighting for freedom, oftentimes from the economic and political interests that became free on 1776. . . . . America is the story of powerful people struggling to keep their disproportionate amount of power from people who are struggling for the power to be free.

The power to be free should have particular resonance on this Fourth of July in the eye of Donald Trump’s America. Resonance for all those struggling for the power to free those Latinx children and mothers and fathers from the terror and horror that is the southern border. Resonance for all those Americans struggling for the power to free humanity and Earth from the fatal grips of climate change, bigotry, and nuclear war. Do all those Americans really have the power to be free?

Wealthy white men certainly do. Disproportionate power and freedom. I live in Washington, D.C., but I won’t be anywhere near the celebration or political rally on the National Mall. I won’t be anywhere near the Lincoln Memorial on old grounds straining to hold up the weight of armored vehicles. I don’t want to see that tragedy or the walking tragedy of red MAGA hats moving around covered minds. I don’t want to hear verbal fireworks from President Trump, a speech that is liable to set anything within earshot that is true or loving on fire.

. . . I have always understood why humans resisted tyrants. But I never really understood why humans fully submitted to tyrants until I studied American history, until I entered Trump’s America and watched the patriots to tyranny. To believe freedom comes before power is to stifle the struggle to equalize power. It is to reinforce the power of the extremely wealthy white men who declared independence years ago. There is no more docile slave than one who believes he or she is free.

. . . When Americans struggle for the power to be free, they are afflicting and revolutionizing and refining the United States. They are the Patriots. Patriotism on the Fourth of July is resistance.

– Ibram X. Kendi
Excerpted from “Resistance Is Patriotism on the Fourth of July”
The Atlantic
July 4, 2019

Related Off-site Links:
Defending the Right of Radical Dissent Is the Highest Expression of Patriotism – John Nichols (The Nation, July 3, 2019).
This Fourth of July, We Will Still Hold Some Truths to Be Self-Evident – Donna Smith (Common Dreams, July 4, 2019).
How Do You Celebrate a Flawed Nation? – Jill Richardson (OtherWords, June 26, 2019).
America the Desecrated – Lili Loofbourow (Slate, July 3, 2019).
Trump Celebrates Himself on July 4th – Medea Benjamin and Ann Wright (Common Dreams, July 4, 2019).
The Founding Fathers Would Be Ashamed of Donald Trump's Egocentric, Militaristic July 4th – Patti Davis (USA Today, July 3, 2019).
The Best Fourth of July Speech in American History – James West Davidson (Slate, July 5, 2015).
Five Habits to Heal the Heart of Democracy – Parker Palmer (The Global Oneness Project).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Michael Sean Winters on This Year's Grim Fourth of July: “The Entire Republican Establishment Has Caved to Trumpism”
• Queer Native Americans, Colonialism, and the Fourth of July
• Quote of the Day – April 13, 2019
• Quote of the Day – November 5, 2018