Posted on 07/03/2014 7:22:45 PM PDT by Drango
Celebrating Independence Day on July Fourth is as American as burgers and dogs on the grill, lemonade in plastic cups, apple pie on paper plates, baseball, fireworks and Sousa marches.
Except for those Americans who don't celebrate it at all.
Like William H. Lamar IV. Last year the African-American preacher from Hyattsville, Md., wrote an essay that was carried by In it he asked: "How can I celebrate liberty with bondage — economic bondage, educational bondage, political bondage, health care bondage, and religious bondage — all around me?"
On the Fourth of July, he continued, "I will reflect on America as it was and as it is. And I will affirm my allegiance to my ancestors whose fight lives on in me."
The pastor is one of a strain of Americans who, throughout the country's history, have chosen to express their independence on Independence Day by not celebrating Independence. Forgoing the Fourth. Here is a trio of other examples:
1) Witnesses To History. More than 11,000 Jehovah's Witnesses convened in Tacoma, Wash., on July 4 weekend 2009, according to the Tribune Business News. "The convention continues today on Independence Day," the reporter wrote, "with another full schedule of speakers and singing. But don't expect any fireworks or flag waving. Witnesses don't celebrate the Fourth of July. They consider flags objects of worship."
2) Gourd Clan Ceremonies. Beginning in the late 19th century, Dennis Zotigh of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington , the U.S. government outlawed tribal dances, feasts and other American Indian ceremonial expressions. Native Americans were encouraged to celebrate American holidays instead. In the 20th century, those indigenous festivities slowly returned. Today "the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma holds Gourd Clan ceremonies on the Fourth of July," he writes, "because the holiday coincides with their Sun Dance, which once took place during the hottest part of the year. The Lakota of South Dakota and Cheyenne of Oklahoma continue to have some of their annual Sun Dances on the weekends closest to the Fourth of July to coincide with the celebration of their New Year. Some American Indians do not celebrate the Fourth of July because of the negative consequences to Indian people throughout history, while others simply get together with family and have cookouts, like many non-Native American citizens."
3) Days Of Slavery. Born a slave, social reformer Frederick Douglass was asked to deliver an oration — — at an Independence Day gathering at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, N.Y., in 1852. "What, to the American slave," he asked the crowd, "is your Fourth 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. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour." Douglass' speech informed and influenced future Americans — including William H. Lamar IV.
My flag remains furled.
Things have gotten even worse than I thought under Obama, from what I read here.
Sounds like we all agree on that.
Your friend reminds me of the character “English Bob” from Clint Eastwood’s “Unforgiven”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuK3zSxG4cs
This is an honest question FRiend (not meant to be provocative):
What do you think the American flag represents?
What a stinging indictment of a corrupt and evil political and social structure. He had cause to be resentful and angry, this current complainer just need to suck it up and take advantage of the freedom which our ancestors fight and died for. He has the guarantee of the opportunity to get our there and fight for it like the rest of us, not the promise of a free lunch.
Flown upside down, it signifies great distress.
Maybe I’ll fly my Gadsden or skull & crossbones flag.
I just can’t see putting Old Glory out upside down.
You go ahead and enjoy yourself.
And you can be sure that, outside of using them as an example for this story, NPR considers the Witnesses to be as stupid as anyone else who takes their religion seriously.
bump
AFAIK, it’s never been illegal to choose not to celebrate the Fourth of July, Christmas or any other holiday. It’s also not been illegal to try to make an issue out of a non-issue such as NPR is attempting to do here.
NPR just can’t accept their irrelevancy; they have to try and gin up hate and discontent. Reminds one of the One.
And the beauty of this American experience is that those folks are free to not join in the festivities. No one is forcing them to be a part of the celebrations.
Amen.
Thanks, I get it.
To me, the flag represents the founding principles, not the idiots running the place at the moment or the sad results they produce.
I will enjoy myself. I’m spending the 4th reading “Washington, the Indispensable Man.”
Good, inspirational stuff.
I’m not celebrating this year. I’m in mourning for the loss of my beloved country.
It’s the types of bondage that this guy and his ilk have voluntarily imposed upon their own selves. Just refusing to get of the gov’t plantation...
F’em.
Lamar can LEAVE if it’s so terrible. Nobody has this guy or the other gibsmedats chained to anything - only they refuse to remove the chains.
Hey “Rev.” - Don’t let the door hit you in the a$$ on the way out. GD race pimp...
“...the Jehovah Witnesses crowd. Their objection is a matter of faith...”
We must recognize that their organization is counter to a constitutional republic. They may not be a threat to the Republic in a violent way like Muzzie Jihadists but they use their freedom without contributing to its preservation.
Serena Williams can say she doesn’t vote because she is a Jehova’s Witness but she also says that she is all about Barack Obama thus making a celebrity endorsement and thus participating in politics and of course it is Leftward ho politics.
I shoot for.........., well.......... whom...ever.
Everyday.
ping
“My flag remains furled.”
I hear you; when I finished school it was practically illegal to hire white guys. The big accounting firms would recruit in meetings with NABA (National Association of Black Accountants) rather than the larger Accounting Society. Blacks think somehow “withholding patriotism” will make a statement or have an impact; whites have responded by importing Hispanics as a new underclass and safely storing blacks on urban welfare reservations. Just as blacks banned flags from their “Million Male March” (I won’t call them “men”), now white America sees no semblance of the country today in what those brave men created over 200 years ago, and are content to just have a day off.
At this point the few American flags I see in front of houses are those of government employees; here in northern NJ it is just as likely the flags aren’t even American. We had Cinco de Mayo; now we have Cuatro de Julio...
“To me, the flag represents the founding principles, not the idiots running the place at the moment or the sad results they produce.”
I understand the sentiment; I’d use one of their flags, then (Gadsen?).
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