Sunday Musings - July 4, 2021
The duties of a citizen
This date in the United States is celebrated as Independence Day. For me it is a day to attempt to discern my responsibilities as a citizen. My first task today was to reread the Decoration of Independence, the first part of which reads:
“The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
Mr. Jefferson then goes on to detail particular grievances. If the reader has not recently read this document in full, I strongly recommend doing so.
Of course, one has to read this document in the context in which it was written. Thomas Jefferson and the other males responsible for drafting and signing this document were all white and all landowners. Not all the males who worked on drafting this declaration signed it. 55 males did sign it. One female, Mary Katherine Goddard, Baltimore printer, also added her signature. One will not, of course, find the signature of any of the indigenous people, slaves or females other than Ms. Goddard.
The declaration also states;
“In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms; Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
As I was rereading this last paragraph I could not help to think of the fact that this last paragraph could easily be proclaimed and written by many citizens of these United States including those who are black, those whose land was stolen, those who are female, those mentally ill individuals who are imprisoned, those whose fair trial was impeded by the lack of ability to hire a professional attorney orator, those whose religious beliefs are not Christian, and the many refugees fleeing poverty and oppression whose have often by elected officials of these United States been labeled as criminals and treated as such.
I believe it is the sacred duty of every citizen in this nation to examine the ways in which our privilege and our actions (including our inactions) continue to contribute to the failure of this Declaration of Independence to apply to all people. Perhaps we need to begin our solemn celebrations today by resolving to teach the history of this country as it is and not as what we would like to think it is. Perhaps this will mean for some who live in states which have passed legislation outlawing the teaching of “critical race theory” and the truth about gender, vowing to become good citizens by being civilly disobedient. Perhaps this will mean that we commit to uncovering the overt and covert ways we are racist, sexist and other ways practice the oppression of others. Perhaps we will resolve to quit referring to these United States of America as America. These United States actually includes some of the Americas but also includes Hawaii. It does not include Canada, Central America, South America, Greenland and Mexico. Although respected historians and other academics have and will continue to belive it is is okay to referred to ourselves as America, it seems to me that perceiving and referring to ourselves as one of the Americas or the United States of America could be the beginning of the humility and honestly which is always a necessary step in the healing/recovery/redemption process.
On a very personal level my intention is to recommit to the never ending process of identifying my active and passive behavior which impedes the movement towards freedom for all people whether this be my use of language, holding on to the redacted history I have internalized, failing to listen to my neighbors, or metaphorically crossing the street to avoid those I have been taught to fear.
Written July 4, 2021
Jimmy F Pickett
Coachpickett.org
RSS Feed