What to the Anti-fascist is the 250th Fourth of July?

America, Anathema  |  miniatures and scrapbooking stickers  |  2026

As the country where I live creates its retrospectives on its 250th anniversary, I would like to share a retrospective of my own. Here are some posts I've written about America over the years.

'Murica! Land of the Free, and America, Anathema - 2026

"The status quo that so many hope to return to was built upon a well-concealed moral rot. Now it seeps out for everyone to see, but as a Black woman with a knowledge of American history, none of it shocks me."

100 Days of Hell - 2025

"I am disgusted but not surprised or afraid. Because I have always assumed the worst of everyone in the administration, nothing they do shocks me. I wouldn’t put anything past them. Nothing is too senselessly depraved for them to try."

The Inevitable Was Bound to Happen - 2021

"I'm not a patriot. I don't feel a sense of ownership or belonging when it comes to my citizenship in the United States. I've always felt like an outcast. I've always felt disregarded, disrespected and dismissed by the powers that be. I've never let myself get emotionally attached....I just live here."

Reflections on a Month of Rebellion and Reckoning - 2020

"But what can you expect from a society that exalts its police and soldiers above the rest of its citizens? What can you expect from a country so infatuated with violence?"

We Need New Monuments - 2017

"Every day there has been a new insult to injury. Every day there are insipid op-eds and social media posts by people who either lack the critical thinking skills, the awareness, the fortitude, or the moral courage to stand for anything calling for everybody to just get along with their oppressors, dealing in mindless false equivalencies, saying that it's not that bad, telling us we complain too much about 'identity politics' and need to 'get over it,' talking about how shocked they are, interviewing the fools who voted for Trump to try to force the rest of us to empathize with them, or saying that we shouldn't punch Nazis."

And I feel like no Fourth of July observance is complete without this powerful speech that Fredrick Douglass gave in 1852: