independence day – Fluid Imagination

last year on the fourth of july i wrote a piece that tries to convey how joyful my white, cis, male privilege can feel and how grateful for it i can be. i did not try to shy my eyes or the reader’s eyes from the horrible pains of the world, but i also pointed out the wholesome pleasures i experienced during my backyard barbecue.

i expect to do the exact same thing later today. there will be a parade of people from my village and the surrounding towns. a townwide carnival on the fields of the village’s elementary school. people i know from a wide variety of circles walking past and saying hello. and a backyard barbecue of my closest friends and their families, as well as members of my own far-flung family who’ve driven in from chicago to be with us this week. all will be wholesome and fun.

but behind it all will be what we know is going on, the fears and anxieties caused by the political realities of our time, the potential for outright antagonism, even among friends, family, and neighbors. the children in the cages. the lead in the water. the absence of support for the people of puerto rico. the corruption of the various agencies of our government. the corporate capitalist takeover. the russian influences. the empty seat on the supreme court. the power-hungry lies of various media outlets with audiences in the millions. the lack of an organized opposition party. the continuing evidence demonstrating, day after day, that black lives still don’t matter and that neither do the lives of our school-aged children. the original and continuing sin of aboriginal genocide, both in terms of physical bodies and in terms of cultures and wisdoms.

it’s all there, laying around us as we eat our hot dogs and taste our hamburgers, an ever-increasing body count of victims.

and over it all, in the rocket’s red glare, the fireworks bursting in air, that star-spangled banner yet waves.

happy independence day everyone. be careful what you do with it.

I don’t run from the epithet, American. As a liberal in conservative America, I sometimes feel as if I’m supposed to. We’re a country full of nationalistic and self-involved racists whose ability to empathize with those whom we trod down upon is never enough to live up to our hypocritical claim of being a Christian nation. We’re loud, obnoxious, and willfully ignorant. We cling to guns and our religion because we’re too stupid to rise up against the capitalists whose propaganda we swallow whole every night. We are afraid of every little thing, and that fear drives us to wave our army dicks all over the world in an attempt to scare off anyone who might disagree with us.

Is that something to celebrate? No, not at all. But you know what is?

The ability to stand in my own backyard, surrounded by family and people in my community, people whom I’m proud to call my friends, and to share with these people some fine ales and wholesome foods, and to laugh with them as we await a public fireworks display, paid for through our donations and our tax dollars in celebration of those who came before us and of those who stand among us.

Somewhere tonight, a child huddled in the wreckage of a bombed out building. Somewhere else, a woman died giving childbirth in a dark and marshy field.

But here, on my property, in my community, no one worried about that. The thought of those realities didn’t come up once. Our children ran around and laughed, and the only reason any of them cried is because they bonked their heads together in the bouncy house that one of my neighbors, unsolicited, was nice enough to lend to our party. I didn’t worry for any of the babies in attendance; I didn’t once doubt their parents’ ability to provide them with food and shelter and love. During the evening, three different SUVs drove by my house with Sheriff written on the side, and not once did I imagine that anyone in those cars would be a threat to me, my family, or my guests.

But somewhere, a middle-aged man died of a curable disease, his family looking on, sadness and relief both present in their eyes. Somewhere else, a father cuddled with his son knowing that, if the rain doesn’t come tomorrow, there will be no water.

I know as a liberal white man I’m supposed to feel guilty about my privileges, and in some ways, I really do, but there also times like today, when I can throw horseshoes with new acquaintances and neighbors, when I can make fun of close friends and know that my humor won’t be misconstrued as meanness, when I can stand over a grill and non-ironically live out a Budweiser commercial, times like today, when I really and truly feel grateful to call myself an American, and I don’t feel guilty at all.

Happy Independence Day, everybody. May you have a life to be grateful for as well.