An Op-Ed by Enroot Executive Director, Ben Clark, originally published in the Cambridge Chronicle:
This year on July 4th rather than celebrating our past, I will be looking ahead and celebrating our future.
As a white man, I really struggle with what it means to celebrate a day marking a victory which applied exclusively to white men. In many ways July 4, 1776, was a day that actually further institutionalized inequality for what is today over 70% of the U.S. population. The utter hypocrisy of the Declaration of Independence makes it hard to enthusiastically celebrate its announcement. I hope reflecting on our first revolution will inspire many of us to apply a similar ferocity to our generation’s revolution, the racial justice revolution. This revolution gives us the chance to finally apply the ideals declared in 1776 to ALL people in our country. That would be a victory worth celebrating.
The statues and flags coming down across the country signal a long-overdue honest reckoning with our history. We have a once-in-a-century opportunity to create permanent change as we dismantle systemic racism, anti-blackness and white supremacy. To truly seize on it, no symbol or tradition can be considered off limits from reexamination. Thomas Jefferson, who authored the Declaration of Independence, enslaved over 600 Black human beings throughout his life. This July 4th we must ask ourselves, on which days do we mark the independence of the other 70% of our population, and why don’t we celebrate those with the same vigor?
Juneteenth is often referred to as “America’s Second Independence Day.” June 19, 1865, of course did not include an accounting for all the harm done to Black people in this country over generations of enslavement. Most of it remains unaddressed today, and the oppression of Black people remains enshrined in our legal system, even though it changes form each generation. But it did mark a fundamental change in our country and it is fitting that each year we celebrate Juneteenth just before we celebrate July 4th, so that they can be considered in concert.
July 4th is also an incredibly important holiday for immigrants. Becoming a part of this country remains a dream to millions around the world and no holiday captures this more symbolically. As executive director of Enroot, I think a lot about how the lived experience of immigrants differs from their imagined experience prior to arrival. I consider the perspective of Black immigrants from Haiti, Senegal, Ethiopia, or Brazil, who recognize almost immediately that they are afforded less respect and less opportunity than white people. I consider the perspective of Central American immigrants, who see children, women and men pried apart and locked in cages for months at our border. I’m devastated that many wonder, “Is this really the country I set my sights on years ago?”
During a recent conversation about racism and police brutality against Black people in the U.S., an Enroot student originally from Haiti said to me, “Before I came here I used to have a different idea of police. The idea was that they were good and would keep me safe. Now I feel like they are dangerous for me and I don’t feel safe when they are around.” His words symbolize an experience of disorientation and heartbreak that many immigrants, especially those who identify as Black, feel upon realizing that people who look like them don’t hold equal standing here. And that their physical security is less assured than it would have been back at home. And that the systemic racism surrounding them means their family’s prospects are not as promising as they seemed.
In Frederick Douglass’ 1852 speech “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”, he said to his white audience, “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. 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?...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.”
I’m ashamed that Douglass’ words have so much resonance today, since Black people and people of color still stand on such unequal footing in this country founded on equality.
This July 4th, let our reflections on our first revolution inspire us all to join the racial justice revolution today. Let us apply the same courage and ferocity to today’s revolution, and let us ensure that this time no one is excluded.
Ben Clark is executive director of Enroot, a Cambridge-based nonprofit that supports immigrant students to achieve academic, career and personal success.