Please add a trigger warning to your post. The hangings. My brother killed himself that way and all these years later I still feel the pain.

are Uncle Tom's??

Because most of us do. We see the warts, we also see the potential. We celebrate the latter, while fighting to remove the former.

July 4th has always been my favorite holiday. That doesn't make me an Uncle Tom.

Black people are the most American Americans. We built this country, and sooner or later, we will reap the rewards of that construction.

Got fireworks going off every which way. Kapernick might speak for a lot of people, but I don't think it's most black people. People agree with a couple of things, but there's a limit.

and have a good time with family and friends—not a particular concern about patriotism.

This is our country though because we are many generations removed from the continent of Africa. There's no going back.

Our loyalty is different from whites though. We have centuries of labor, blood and sweat in this country. Much of the nation's wealth was built on our backs from unpaid labor and we know it. The nation owes us and we know that too so we don't get excited and patriotic about the 4th of July as anything but another day off.

Of course with this virus it isn't even a carefree day off now because we have the stupidest president ever who bungled the response and 130,000 have died who didn't all have to die.

the patriotism as well. It's been a day to sit around and bitch about the condition of the world, and I'm sure blacks and whites are doing plenty of that. I haven't heard a word about patriotism. We're probably more alike than you think.

I just meant that if they expected him to shut up, they're going to be disappointed.

And tragic.

We need to reclaim this holiday from the racists. It needs to be about freedom for ALL.

I hate it when a great post is bent oddly by the first few comments. That stuff is for later in the thread folks. Yes, I have noticed that not all brothers share identical views on all things. They still seem like good folk to me. I am going to shut up and listen now. This is a moment when those of us with pale complexions need to listen and only break the silence with an occasional "Amen, Brother!" Unless of course we are standing up to twisted power. Then my pale brothers, be loud.

Thank you.

Or whether he chooses to celebrate the 4th.

ONLY by wingers.
I thought we were celebrating independence from England? I supported Kapernick but there's something I'm not understanding now.

My poor dogs & I are thankful for the return to peace & quiet - they refused to walk tonight.

It's a favorite of mine, I usually watch it on or around July 4th. It's a fair representation of what went on when the declaration of Independence was written, debated, and unanimously approved.

The South, led by the South Carolina contingent, would not approve the declaration until the antislavery part was removed.

Some interesting dialogue between Adams, Franklin and Jefferson about how history would judge them, but to get the colonies to unite and fight for Independence they had to "compromise." And they'd be long gone when history and was written. So they reluctantly removed the antislavery part in order to get the South to go along.

We know that less than 100 years later we fought a civil war on this issue. But if we had not compromised with the declaration, we would not have declared Independence. We'd have remained a British colony. Then, when UK repealed slavery, the damn Southerners here would have rebelled and fought to keep their slaves anyway. At least that's my take.

I've lived in the South for many years. I know racism exists throughout the US, but it's been cultivated and nurtured especially in the South, then migrated to the Midwest and insinuated itself throughout the country. I think 45's election was a response, a blowback by the racists in our society who were so outraged that we had elected a black man as president, twice.

I also believe that they (racists) are especially aggressive and fearful of the rise of minorities because racists fear retribution. They have been hateful and cruel, and expect that when they are no longer the majority they will be treated the (bad) way they treated minorities.

Colin is echoing Frederick Douglas, who wrote a powerful piece on how July 4 celebration of Independence was a white man's holiday, because the black man was not free or independent. While it appears they are now free, and independent, they are not treated fairly or equally by too many, and that's got to change. I feel we've mostly been taking 2 steps forward and one step back, making slow progress. Obama showed a huge leap forward, but 45 was a huge leap back.

Hopefully we'll take another leap forward when Biden becomes president.