Thursday, March 10, 2011

We Do Love This Country-Even Though Some Of Its Citizens Piss Us Off

Contrary to the public conservaopinion that all African-Americans are 'unpatriotic', we do love this country.. We love it enough to work tirelessly to make it reflect what was written in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.   We love it enough to have shed blood in every armed conflict that the United States has been engaged in 

We care about enough to vote for the best candidates in every election cycle at the local, state and federal levels. .


We have marched and protested to ensure our rights were respected and protected, and fought even harder to ensure there was plenty of cash on deposit to back up that check at the freedom bank that at times in our history when we sought to cash it has come up 'insufficient funds'.

We have had our best minds of both genders over the 400 years we've been in North America wax eloquently and praise it when it inches closer to that idealized nation spelled out in the 'We The People' preamble of the Constitution and criticize it when it doesn't.

On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave this speech at an event commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence, held at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, NY. It speaks eloquently, even a little over 150 years later of some of the issues that African-Americans think about when we try to ascertain how we personally feel about our country and how it feels about us.


And frankly, we want an America as good as or better than its promise.

But yeah, we have to admit that some of its nekulturny citizens piss us off.    The Tea Klux Klan, birthers, fauxgressives, sheet wearing bigots, the neo Know-Nothing right wing pundits and the racists who wear Brooks Brothers suits and Ferragamo pumps are just some of them that do.


The ones who claim they are 'Real Americans' and love the Constitution but can only tell you about the Second and Tenth Amendments, incorrectly screech about the First Amendment, and give you a blank stare when you point out there are 24 other amendments to the living document  we call the United States Constitution.


My people know far more about this country and its history than you people who loudly proclaim you want to 'take this country back'.   From who?   To what?

Yes, we African descended Americans do love this country.   Even if some of y'all piss us off with your ongoing centuries long tendency to vote against your own political and economic interests.     

So we'll just keep working on that more perfect union, even if y'all are hellbent on destroying it.




No comments: