Response to H.W due 4/9

What, to the American slave, is your 4th 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 denunciations 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 these United States, at this very hour.

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july/ 

This passage is about Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave and social reformer, delivering a speech about the Fourth of July. Douglass was appalled about having to present a speech about a country's freedom where he did not experience the freedom that America promised since he lived through the time period of slavery. In this passage he describes the type of treatment and abuse slaves received. He states that, for an American slave, celebrating the 4th of July is seen as "injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim" since slaves were badly mistreated and received the short end of the stick in this country.

I chose this passage because it stood out to me the most. I never put into consideration how African Americans who's families/ancestors were once slaves would feel about this day America celebrates. To me, 4th of July is a day were families and friends get together to have BBQs, go to the beach, or see the firework show. Frederick Douglass put the 4th of July into a different perspective for me because I never put myself in these individual's shoes. It is not right to brag and take such pride in a country that mistreated people simply because of how others felt about their skin color. Douglass feels that America is full of savages, hypocrites, and this country is deceptive. I agree. Yes, this may be a great country to live in but to think about the way people were abused and discriminated back then, how free and how great is America really? Also, it was considerably sick for whoever asked Frederick Douglass to deliver this speech. He experienced the injustice and maltreatment when he was a slave. No person in their right mind that was treated the way slaves were treated would want to stand in front of a crowd and not acknowledge their past experience.