San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Burst of patriotism feels alien when you’re Black
Frankie Beverly and Maze singing “Before I Let Go” over the radio. Ribs sizzling on the grill. Playing dominoes and talking about life. This is Fourth of July growing up in a Black family. You won’t often see us go all out on American flag decorations. Patriotic displays aren’t commonly part of our celebrations.
But how we navigate this day is lost in the swell of July Fourththemed porch decorating contests, Independence Day pub crawls and AllAmerican BBQ events happening throughout the region.
This holiday reminds me that in the Bay Area, Black and white people live in different Americas.
“We’re literally celebrating the defeat of Black people’s opportunity for freedom when the Colonies defeated the British.” Professor Macheo Payne, Cal State East Bay
Black Bay Area residents celebrate on the Fourth. We don’t celebrate the Fourth. It’s a nuanced difference. We know the history being celebrated today mythologizes the actions of white colonialists while ignoring the pain and exploitation of indigenous and enslaved people.
These realities are why Stephanie McWoods, an Oakland resident who spent 10 years serving in the Army, said she isn’t planning to leave the house today. “When I was growing up, (what we did) was never this homage to America. The Fourth of July was a day off and you used it,” she said. “We’re conditioned to know that we don’t work for this holiday. I’m going to uphold that tradition. But the rest of the stuff about America and the patriotic bulls— falls to the wayside.”
Others seek out local events with predominantly Black crowds. One of the more popular ones before the pandemic was Fam Bam, held every July 4 at the Lake Merritt Amphitheater. It was a celebration of Black life, not a commemoration of America’s independence. Oakland community organizer Gabrielle McCarter usually goes with her family to San Francisco for the Fillmore Jazz Festival. It’s an experience devoid of the overt patriotism found in other Bay Area events, she said.
“For us, it was like a reunion every year. You get to see everybody from the neighborhood that got pushed out. You get to see each other, hug and reminisce about what it used to be like,” she said. “As far as going and doing those barbecues and fireworks and all that, we’ve never done that.”
America’s 13 British colonies declared their independence on July 4, 1776. An upstart government of white men in white wigs wrote down that all men were created equal, then applied that to only certain men. The notion that this day represents freedom for all Americans is a vanity, paid for by privilege, that only white people know as true. At least, that’s how it was explained to me by Professor Macheo Payne of the department of social work at Cal State East Bay.
Payne noted that Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807, and in 1833 abolished slavery through nearly all of the British Empire. America didn’t do the same for another three decades.
“The Fourth of July is a more nefarious holiday than Thanksgiving,” he said. “When we celebrate the Fourth of July and we wave the American flag, we’re literally celebrating the defeat of Black people’s opportunity for freedom when the Colonies defeated the British.”
Last year’s Fourth of July came at a remarkable point in the American experiment. The Black Lives Matter movement, led by young organizers, galvanized people to protest systemic racism in everything from education and housing to police violence against Black bodies. The work continued what civil rights leaders were doing in the 1960s. Confederate monuments were removed. California declared racism a public health crisis.
But six months later, farright extremists stormed the U.S. Capitol. They did so in support of a president who stoked the flames of America’s white nationalist movement. Photos show some of these criminals carrying American and Confederate flags, and flashing white power symbols.
By storming the Capitol, they thought they were protecting America, and in a way they were. It was just their America — one where white nationalism is normalized, voting rights are attacked, hate crimes against Black and Asian Californians are rising, critical race theory is propagandized as a movement of the “radical left,” and the American flag is a weaponized yet sacrosanct symbol.
Many of the Black people I’ve talked to about the Fourth said they attended Juneteenth celebrations in recent years. The June 19 holiday commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S. Some described it as a preferred alternative to the country’s patriotic pivot on July 4.
Now that it’s a federal holiday, it feels like the only reprieve Black people had from the Fourth of July is being coopted, Payne argued.
“Once the country, its institutions, its companies pick up on a holiday, they think ‘Oh, this is another opportunity to make money.’ By next year, Juneteenth is going to have all kinds of gimmicks for Black people,” Payne said. “It’s going to soil and spoil the kuj
ichagulia of Juneteenth. ... It’s going to feel like it’s theirs, too.”
I hope Payne is wrong about that. We as Black people don’t need to be reminded of the painfully complicated relationship we have with this country. On the Fourth of July, there’s just no way to avoid it.