Frederick Douglass: “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” (Part 3)

In 1852, Frederick Douglass boldly spoke out against a clear, irrefutable evil: American slavery and the Fugitive Slave Act. The aim of his attack wasn’t the founding of the United States, or the Constitution, the Founding Fathers, or the Declaration of Independence. He went out of his way to praise those things. What he took aim at was the evil of slavery that threatened to turn all those good things into a sham. He boldly named the sin, he laid it bare in all its hideousness, but he also spoke with unbridled optimism in the great American experiment that would soon bring an end to the slave trade. It was his work, along with other abolitionists and President Abraham Lincoln, that we eventually ended slavery. The United States was so committed to it that hundreds of thousands of soldiers gave their lives to free the millions of slaves they never even knew.

By contrast, certain modern day talking heads like Joy Reid (and others) are pushing an entirely different narrative that attempts to paint the United States with nothing but the colors of racism, misogyny, colonialism, and patriarchy. But, as we see with the 1619 Project, they can’t appeal to actual history to justify their narrative. They have to distort and lie about the facts of history. The 1619 Project itself says it is trying to “reframe the country’s history” by giving a new origin story, centered around the idea that slavery and racism is the root cause of everything in America. And if you do not agree with that claim, you are accused to trying to whitewash US History completely and sweeping the ugly history of slavery and racism under the rug. Nothing can be further from the truth. The goal should be to view history, both the good things and bad things, as truthfully as possible. Pushing extremist distortions of that history should be rejected.

The United States, like any country, is not perfect. But when seen against the backdrop of history, it is pretty amazing. It set up an entirely new framework for government that has allowed people to live in a free, prosperous society. It has been so successful, that most countries in the free world have used the United States as their model. Furthermore, despite the black stain of slavery, we fought a war to end it. And then we passed civil rights legislation to put an end to Jim Crow. The advances we have made in race relations alone has been astounding. You can see pictures from the 1920s of KKK rallies, with thousands of people in white hoods, marching down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC. Now, the only people who associate with the KKK are the most ignorant, uneducated rubes, living in small pockets of the south. The KKK has become a joke.

There are so many other things that we can be proud of and thankful for. It has been so great to see all these soccer fans from around the world coming to America for the World Cup simply gushing over how amazing they are finding the United States to be. We in this country have been fed with such a steady diet of “America is racist, misogynist, racist” drivel by the likes of Joy Reid and other activists, that we start seeing everything through that kind of cynical, sarcastic, negative, and yes, unpatriotic lens, to where actual displays of patriotism invite scorn.

What I’ve found is that much of the criticism (if it doesn’t involve simply distorting our history, like the 1619 Project does) involves nothing concrete at all. Just whiny sloganeering and mealy-mouthed bitching: “It’s patriotic to grieve over what has become of our country.” “I don’t hate my country; I just love it enough to admit everything isn’t fine.” “We can love our country and still speak out on corruption, dehumanization, and the war machine.” Of course, we all know the root cause of this attitude is Trump Derangement Syndrome. Because of that, such people simply see everything in a negative light now. A recent CNN poll showed that only 29% of Democrats say they love their country. That number was around 65% under Obama, while over 90% of Republicans consistently say they love their country, regardless of who is president.

If Frederick Douglass were here today, I imagine he would primarily have two thoughts. First, he’d be amazed at how far we have come as a nation and he would celebrate it. Second, he’d say to the mealy-mouthed whiners, “Like what? Be specific! Name the real sin! I boldly spoke out against slavery, and the Fugitive Slave Act. I named the problem and took a rhetorical blowtorch to it because it really was evil. What are you doing? Whining and bitching in the vaguest terms possible? If something is truly sinful and evil, BOLDY SAY WHAT IT IS AND CHALLENGE PEOPLE TO CHANGE IT.”

But they don’t get to anything really specific for one reason. Let’s use one specific example: ICE and illegal immigration. Is enforcing immigration law the equivalent of the Fugitive Slave Act? No. Sending someone back to their home country is not in any way, shape, or form like forcibly kidnapping someone in one country and bringing them to this country to be a slave. Of course, one can argue that is exactly what is happening with the human traffickers who use our porous border to do just that. And that leads to the next question. Is allowing millions of illegals into the country with little or no vetting a wise and responsible thing for the government to do? No. What should be done about the millions who have come in illegally? Aye, there’s the rub! That’s a really difficult problem to tackle. People should debate the specifics about how to tackle that problem but mere sloganeering like “Abolish ICE” and “There are no illegal human beings” accomplish nothing.

Having your patriotism be dependent on your personal feelings about the personality of a single person, the president, is just sad to see. But that has what has happened over the past ten years or so with almost half the country. As Robert DeNiro recently said, they can’t love a country that would elect Donald Trump. I can, because my love of country isn’t reduced to a single candidate or politician. The great things the United States has done doesn’t change whenever a candidate you might not like gets elected.

Frederick Douglass loved the United States and praised its founding documents the Founding Fathers. His love was so robust that he was able to directly and forcefully name the great sin of American slavery and call for change. Although the Joy Reids of the country try to co-opt Douglass into their “I hate everything about America” narrative, we shouldn’t let them, because Douglass’ view of the United States is the polar opposite of that Reid’s and the 1619 Project. He called out a specific, undeniable evil and challenged people to continue the work of the Founding Fathers to address that evil. Today’s mealy-mouthed critics, though, whine and complain in the language of vague slogans and take aim at the country itself. It’s no wonder why so many people who have bought into that false and distorted narrative no longer love their country. The fact is, though, we’re not living in 1852 America anymore. We’re not living in 1925 anymore. We’re not even living in 1963 anymore. We’ve made true progress. We’ve made great progress. Why? Because, despite its flaws, the United States is a great nation. We shouldn’t have the attitude of so-called “progressives” like Joy Reid–that distorted progressivism is nothing less than regressive.

I’ll side with the attitude of Frederick Douglass instead, where actual progress rooted in patriotism is celebrated and honored.