Fireworks won’t fix racism. One DEI workshop can’t do it either.
Truth. America’s hidden history is hard to hear, hard to witness. For victims of colonization and racism, honestly, things are far worse. Celebrate freedom, but don’t ignore the facts.
Juneteenth was not simply 2 years overdue; it was hundreds of years too late. Independence Day’s truth is just as tainted. While it’s not an either-or, why do we celebrate July 4th when we have moved on from Columbus Day? What are we celebrating?
It’s tough to compartmentalize, to say, hey “they” did some good. “They” stole indigenous lands, owned other humans, raped both, and then declared a country of “Free (white) men.” The only way forward is if we get honest about the systems we inherited that was born out of this tragic shared history. Exploiting the labor of women, keeping Black, Brown, and Indigenous people penniless, powerless, or in prison is as much a fact of American history as our Plymouth rock (which I recommend never bothering to see because truthfully, it’s small, boring, and a rock).
The “sacrifice” of the revolutionaries is not honest. White men fought for their “freedom” from taxes to the king, then stole land from indigenous people to build a puritanical Christian utopia that also taxed the poor and used humans as machines. To this day, wealthy white men in power remain unwelcoming and exploitative to every other color, race, ethnicity, religion, and gender. The same puritanical Christians are fighting tooth and nail to stay in power, afraid of the rise of the Global Majority. Why else would grown men attack young girls like Greta Thunberg or AOC? They are scared, desperate, and grasping at straws.
To this day, wealthy white men in power remain unwelcoming and exploitative to every other color, race, ethnicity, religion, and gender.
We are stuck in this limbo, fighting our way out of the matrix, hoping our planet makes it before the colonizers take everything, leaving earth and all its inhabitants depleted. Ironic but fitting that big orgs become matrixed orgs, too complex to function in a way that makes sense. Some have ripped out their tubes like Keanu, waking up to see miles of people still plugged in. and others remain happier to take the red pill, or wear the red hat.
Use this 4th as a moment to tell yourself and your family the truth. If we acknowledge that the current state of capitalism is just raping and pillaging in a suit and tie, then maybe we can move beyond a corporate culture born out of toxic masculinity, rape culture, and White Supremacy. Dare to dream.
After a “racial reckoning” and a pandemic that laid gender inequality bare, progress is far slower than snail mail. While “the 117th Congress the most racially and ethnically diverse in history” it is still 76% white, (Pew Research Center, 2021). It’s also 74% male. Men outnumber women on the Supreme Court 2 to 1.
Are these wins worth a BBQ or sparklers? If we must celebrate, let’s do so only for the promise of this country, the ideals of freedom and equality that have yet to come to fruition.
93% of Fortune 500 CEOs are men. Only 9% out of 500 CEOs are counted as “ethnically diverse.” Re: 91% are white. “White people own 86% of wealth and makeup 60% of the population.” 28% of the money is spread out for people 0–54, meaning 55 and older own 72% of this nation’s wealth. That same number, 28%, is how much wealth the 70 and up crowd own.
Are these wins worth a BBQ or sparklers? If we must celebrate, let’s do so only for the promise of this country, the ideals of freedom and equality that have yet to come to fruition.
Fireworks won’t fix racism, though they will start Wildfires. One DEI workshop won’t fix a workplace, especially if leadership doesn’t attend. We have to do the work, all year long.
If we must celebrate, let’s do so only for the promise of this country, the ideals of freedom and equality that have yet to come to fruition.
“We the people” means all of us…There is no future without We the People.
