I saw the other post celebrating America's birthday. Nice sentiments. I share in it. And didn't want to rain on that parade.
And those were beautiful photos from tdcameraman / Taylor Dalton!
Nice music too! A good Facebook link!
@tdcameraman's Instagram Bio: Photographer
"Christ is King
Lots of the west 🇺🇸
Content guy @canvascutter
@fordbronco ambassador
Celebrate our 250th with this rad knife 🇺🇸. "
Pictures of folks on horses holding oversized American flags. I liked it. But then I thought it was missing a bit and maybe a little off. I like ford broncos and I love western landscapes. But I couldn't help but notice it was only white guys on horses waving flags.
“A rad knife.”
Then I am also reminded of this which is quoted by Yale historian David Blight from the Yale lecture series America at 250:
On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass was invited to address the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester, New York.
Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to
speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your
national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom
and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence,
extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble
offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and
express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your
independence to us?"….
I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your
high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us.
The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in
common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and
independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me.
The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes
and death to me. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may
rejoice, I must mourn."….
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 denunciations 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."
I’d like to think Fredrick Douglas would give a different speech if he were called upon to do it today. I’m sure he would. We have come a long way.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Happy birthday America