Within this poem are my thoughts on the blood stained "holiday" this country has celebrated since its inciting. In the collage I made to accompany it, I included excerpts of pages from Frederick Douglass's speech, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July" — originally titled "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro" — a reading I HIGHLY recommend to Black and non-Black readers alike. However, with each year that I experience the beyond hypocritical celebration that occurs in this country each July 4th, I am more and more compelled to forever take/interpret this day as a day of reflection and repurposing of my ancestral rage for the irreparable damages done to the world as a result of this nation's birth and the unimaginable sacrifices my ancestors made for us to be living in this imperialist country. This poem is just one byproduct of such reflection.
It all feels obsolete
Hordes of European settlers celebrating the independence of a land…
slaughtered over,
enslaved over,
bloodied for
They celebrate that which
wasn’t theirs to begin with
children crying, screaming
to the sound of explosions…
two opposing worlds
One of pain ~ One of celebration
This land is not mine and I am not it’s.