Monday, July 05, 2021

Independence Day Reflection

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR:  AMERICAN DEMOCRACY


Independence Day Reflection

 

Last night we celebrated Independence Day

With fireworks food and libations

Knowing that the birth of the nation

Was deeply flawed in so many ways

 

Blacks browns Asians and natives have

Little reason to celebrate liberation

From one nation when another

Holds them hostage

 

A slave cares little who he calls master

 

Women were exempt from independence

Though they aided their husbands’ struggle

As if they were fully invested

They had no rights under British rule

They had no rights in the new world

 

And yet we celebrate the birth of the republic

Modern democracy with all its flaws

With gerrymandering and disenfranchisement

With its new and improved Jim Crow laws

 

We celebrate the ideals

We celebrate the principles

We celebrate the vision and the hope

For what our white forefathers gave us

Remains the brightest light on earth

 

We inherited a dream of freedom

With equal rights and justice for all

If falls to us to remember that dream

And to fulfill its promise

 

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