happy 4th? not according to the immigrants who founded our country

Posted bySheila Morris 12 Comments on happy 4th? not according to the immigrants who founded our country

July, 1776

(image from Deseret News, July 04, 2014)

(image from Deseret News, July 04, 2014)

I find it impossble to say the words Happy 4th. this year when there is no real life, no liberty whatsoever and certainly no successful pursuit of happiness for the thousands of asylum seekers illegally and immorally detained in subhuman conditions on this 4th. of July in detention centers scattered across the United States of America. I see no forgiveness for our trespasses against these people crossing the Rio Grande River whose only crime is seeking the same freedoms our ancestors sought when they crossed the Atlantic Ocean.

As gigantic military tanks roll across the mall in front of the Lincoln Memorial with the Blue Angels and Air Force One doing flyovers during a ceremony suspiciously remininiscent of dictatorships flaunting military might instead of a country that is celebrating the unalienable rights of all people, I wonder whether the time has come when the Declaration of Independence is no longer a supreme expression of our profound belief, but merely a cuiosity in a glass case.

Happy 4th? Not this year.

Stay tuned.

 

Published by Sheila Morris

Sheila Morris is a personal historian, essayist with humorist tendencies, lesbian activist, truth seeker and speaker in the tradition of other female Texas storytellers including her paternal grandmother. In December, 2017, the University of South Carolina Press published her collection of first-person accounts of a few of the people primarily responsible for the development of LGBTQ+ organizations in South Carolina. Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home will resonate with everyone interested in LGBTQ+ history in the South during the tumultuous times from the AIDS pandemic to marriage equality. She has published five nonfiction books including two memoirs, an essay compilation and two collections of her favorite blogs from I'll Call It Like I See It. Her first book, Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing received a Golden Crown Literary Society Award. Her writings have been included in various anthologies including Out Loud: the best of Rainbow Radio, Saints and Sinners New Fiction from the 2017 Festival, Mothers and Other Creatures; Cowboys, Cops, Killers, and Ghosts (Texas Folklore Society LXIX). She is a displaced Texan living in South Carolina with her wife Teresa Williams and their dogs Spike, Charly and Carl. She is also Naynay to her two granddaughters Ella and Molly James who light up her life for real. Born in rural Grimes County, Texas in 1946 her Texas roots still run wide and deep.

12 replies on “happy 4th? not according to the immigrants who founded our country”

  3. Well, I won’t say it then. But here’s a little anecdote. Romania started seeing tanks after Ceausescu returned from North Korea in 1978. I see your President recently returned from a similar visit. Birds of a feather flock together

    Liked by 1 person

  4. I can celebrate Independence Day knowing that I am doing everything I can to make sure this horror stops. And that means speaking out–and thank you, Sheila, for doing just that–and voting anyone who stood by and let this happen and says nary a word, out of office.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. No, not this year. It’s not a happy Independence Day.
    I just read this quote: The Tea Partiers prefer a white king to a black president.
    And so here we are deep in the heart of interesting times. I hope our nation survives.

    Liked by 1 person

  6. We have innocent children in cages in concentration camps, children being taken from their parents and ‘lost’ and ‘unaccounted for,’ from these concentration camps, in large numbers. What do you think is happening to these children? Protecting children is a core aspect of human decency. Without this what are we?

    Liked by 1 person

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