07/04/2022
Social injustice is, among other things, a serious public mental-health issue with far-reaching individual, familial, societal, & even prenatal effects.
This 4TH OF JULY, let's celebrate the Black slaves who risked (& lost) their lives fighting & defeating slavery. Let's celebrate the scores of white allies who knew it was pure evil to justify human slavery under any banner, let alone that of Christianity, & conspired with Black Americans to overthrow slavery. Let's celebrate Black Americans who protested along with white allies to end Jim Crow Laws & enact the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the first Black President & Vice President ...& who continue to fight, to this day among other things, against Black voter suppression, under-representation in government, racial disparities across society, racism in the criminal justice system from policing to sentencing, and to be included in American history curriculum.
Let's celebrate LGBTQIA2S+ Americans who have ALWAYS been part of Americana, since the beginning. Let's acknowledge that while there is strength in unified numbers, this acronym is not a monolith. Let's acknowledge that each letter (& each individual) has faced unique & intersecting social injustices, threats, & barriers. Let's celebrate the medical & psychological professionals who have allied with & been represented by LGBTQIA2S+ Americans to end the prejudiced pathologizing of their humanity & loving relationships & continue to fight for & maintain U.S. rights from marriage to freedom from discrimination & violence, including the mind-boggling & horrifying violence & sexual assaults against transgender Americans (50%~ lifetime prevalence).
Let's celebrate American women who have fought to be seen as more than voiceless, opinionless sexual objects to be used, breed, & devalued as they age. Let's celebrate these women & all feminists who fought together to enact laws against sexual harassment & discrimination in the workplace, for the fundamental right to vote, to contribute society-wide & be equally remunerated, & for autonomy from body to just being able to get a credit card without a husband's signature.
Let's celebrate senior Americans for their wisdom & stewardship & for whom we owe our very existence. Let's celebrate them & anti-ageist allies who have fought to protect their health & safety during the pandemic, advocated at medical appointments, pioneered specialized medicine & geropsychology & fitness programs to better meet their needs & affirm their value & dignity, & enacted anti-discrimination protections & advocacy organizations.
Let's celebrate disabled & chronically ill Americans & their allies who have fought to enact anti-discrimination protections, to end preexisting condition health insurance practices, & to create a safer & more accessible, inclusive society, from building access to transportation to digital supports to work from home options to adapted sport, fitness, education, & Paralympics, in which their worth, dignity, belonging, & contributions are affirmed.
Let's celebrate non-U.S. born Americans & their children, both documented & undocumented, from migrant workers who till & harvest our food supply to the likes of Dr. Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa, a Mexican-born man who snuck across the U.S. border in his teens, worked those same fields, learned English, went onto UC Berkeley, then Harvard Medical School, & is now one the world's best neurosurgeons. Or that of Guatemalan-born math/problem-solving genius Luis von Ann, PhD, who created CAPTCHAs in U.S. grad school, engineered them to digitize print works, & founded Duolingo (val. $6B~)... among so many other such people. But let us not use their odds-beating stories to sadistically shame & worsen the lived experiences of those stuck in poverty, including due to many structural, racist & classist barriers.
Let's celebrate Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Sikh, indigenous religious, agnostic, atheist Americans & beyond who demonstrate our commitment to religious freedom -- that everyone deserves to be able to examine the fabric of our collective & individual existence & authentically discover meaning & dimensions of ontology & Ultimate Reality, & not forced to inauthentically adhere to another citizen's or a state's dogma.
Let's celebrate indigenous Americans, far from a monolith, who were also displaced, enslaved, murdered with genocidal intent, crops/orchards/livestock/homes purposely destroyed, including by official U.S. Congress legislation, who suffer to this day. Let's celebrate them (including the American Indian Movement) & their allies who have fought for their full U.S. citizenship & rights which didn't occur until 1924, to end their culture & history being trivialized such as sports mascot caricatures, to teach accurate history instead of whitewashed accounts of indigenous people & colonizers joyfully celebrating Thanksgiving together, & likewise continue to this day.
Let's remember that MANY of these Americans have borne more than one of these realms of identity discrimination & violence (active & passive) as they quite obviously also intersect and overlap. Let's for sure remember there is only one group who consistently held all that power over all of these people & conditions. People like me. And if I can own these facts without trying to rationalize them so can you.
And let's remind white supremacist nationalists that Jesus was NOT white. That He had more in common with the people they are happy to oppress & marginalize than many of them -- He was a person of color, born homeless & in impoverished conditions, fleeing oppressive violence & went onto spend most of His time, certainly in the Gospels, with & advocating for people like those above, while calling out those such as the Pharisees & Sadducees who were legalistic & oppressive, penchants for hierarchy, & wore their faith & privilege like an ornate stole, rather than by His example. And let's remind them that Jesus never once tried to take away their rights, never advocated for death penalties (though He embodied the story of an innocent death row inmate which has been found in nearly 200 cases in the U.S. system since 1973), never once mentioned same-sex relationships or abortion (even though it DID exist & was common practice in his day & my personal views aside as a person who biologically never has to face such a matter), never tried to lobby against their freedom or free-will, but spoke harshly & frequently against treatment of the poor & oppressed & their oppressors (even specifically calling out those who did so while professing their religious virtue/superiority).
And if you cannot include these ubiquitous American legacies in your July 4th celebrations, ***if you feel YOU are the self-appointed arbiter of THEIR lives, liberties, & pursuits of happiness***, maybe reflect on the supremacy you are celebrating, what you really stand for, & from which legacies of U.S. history you iterate.
I'm of course glossing over & missing so many important events & people, & I sincerely apologize. Please share your favorite such Americans (or beyond), their stories of struggle & triumph over social injustice, &/or the work that remains below.
