On Independence Day

see note for reviewers.

our “founding fathers” did not father

me,

because if i had been approached to sign a

“declaration of independence”

from an empire that committed atrocities against me,

of which me & my buddies were able to

list on parchment,

then i would think that those same buddies of mine

would be able to include the ¼ th of the document

excluded in its final publishing,

wherein the atlantic slave trade had been criticized---

yes,

i think that me & my buddies would of had to

free those hundreds of slaves who had been

working on our own individual prospective

estates,

AT THE VERY LEAST,

as something of an obligatory

prerequisite to making the outright obnoxiously

hypocritical claim that

all men were created equal.

 

but alas,

these men whose predecessors crossed a huge body of water

to flee an empire & its

vile mode of taxation,

had no problem waging genocide on the indigenous

population which they encountered when they got here---

they had no problem giving them blankets infected with smallpox &

taking part in the systematic extermination of

nearly 100 million native people

(estimates show a reduction from 100 million to 1.8 million

occurring between the 1490’s of columbus & the wounded

knee massacre of the sioux by the US military in 1890).

 

they had no problem sending boats back across the

atlantic to

rip apart whole families & drag them through the

middle passage, killing at least %15 during the

voyage alone---

one has to wonder if those

tormented & tortured through bouts of scurvy, dysentery,

smallpox, syphilis, measles, overall malnutrition &

treatment as cargo, being beaten by the

cat o’ nine tails relentlessly (often for just being

depressed (melancholy) during the

maafa,

were rejoicing on july 4^th, 1776, when

1/3^rd of those that signed the declaration of independence

still

owned slaves---

including jefferson, the primary writer

(owned at least 130 (sold off at his death).

 

for those that argue that some of these

“valiant” men

wanted so very badly down deep in their

hypocritical hearts

to free these people that they

enslaved & used to build this country that they

stole from those that originally lived here,

one should then ask why the constitution,

being primarily composed by james madison who

owned “106 slaves as of the 1820 census” &

who had owned & sold them all his life,

saw fit to characterize them as not even whole

people, making them

3/5ths instead.

 

shouldn’t juneteenth be celebrated now alongside this

“independence day”---if freedom is what is really being

celebrated?

(june 19^th, 1865, being the day 2,000 federal troops

had to force those in galveston, texas,

to finally abide by lincoln’s proclamation)  

i wonder if all the native-americans who are descendants of

the victims of US genocide would want a day to commemorate the

end of that---

i wonder if there is enough gold in fort knox to even begin

paying back a people that we tried to erase from this

planet.

 

perhaps one should just forget the whole thing,

go outside,

down a beer & shoot off some

roman candles,

right?

Author's Note

“If there be an object truly ridiculous in nature, it is an American patriot, signing resolutions of independency with the one hand, and with the other brandishing a whip over his affrighted slaves.”

-Thomas Day