July 4th, 2025: Sunny all day, highest is 84 degrees Fahrenheit, sunset at 8:30 pm, and its a day we (US) Americans celebrate genocide, slavery, and the rich having all the freedom in the world to oppress others as much as they possibly can. The rich and the powerful are under this illusion that they have freedom to do anything, when in reality, they are controlled too much by money and greed to ever be truly independent. The indigenous people of this land have never seen freedom since European colonizers landed here. The Black people whose ancestors were brutally brought here to work for the settlers and who have been oppressed by the system ever since know that the land of the free term has never applied to them. The Arab Americans who are so wrongfully being discriminated against here and see their families being burnt alive there know this country is not one to be celebrated. The immigrants, the very foundation of this country, who are being violently attacked and kidnapped will never get to experience the freedom you pledge we stand for. The disabled peoples who fail to be taken care of by their government nor see any accommodations made, because bombs have priority, can never taste freedom. The LGBTQ+ people who aren’t even free enough to love who they want to love nor do what they want to their own bodies have been fighting for a day when they will actually be free and safe. The women who have been systematically oppressed, sexualized, and stripped from their rights don’t get to feel independent. The protesters being beaten and arrested on the streets for rising against the empire have always been aware of their limited freedom. And then there are the performative activists, liberals, who ignorantly celebrate today, proudly waving around the flag of the very empire you claim to be protesting against, but with blue nails in protest of the republican party.
The people of this country, who built this country, set a standard for the world to follow, and gave birth to the revolutionary movements towards justice are what we should be acknowledging and using to fuel our current movements against our current, but familiar, struggles.
The performative activism we see by liberals claiming to be “pro-america” but “anti-trump” means nothing when we have seen true resistance. It’s easy to go on and on and on about performative activism but today, we mourn the millions of Native Americans who lost their lives, homes, and cultures at the hands of European colonialism. We mourn the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have been murdered, starved, and tortured at the hands of US imperialism. We see the similarities in both the Native American struggles and the Palestinian struggles.
The Native American genocide was justified by the idea of manifest destiny, similar to how the Palestinian genocide is being justified with the idea of the holy land. The infamous Trail of Tears repeated itself numerous times in Palestine starting with the Nakba.
July 4th is not a day to celebrate, it is a day of mourning and commemorating our great freedom fighters for setting an example for us, the next generation of protesters and critical thinkers.