inner conversations: part two

heart: it's all your fault.
mind: ...i pray that you aren't actually blaming me so early in the morning.
heart: you are the one who gave her a headache in the middle of the night.
mind: i had nothing to do with it. trust me, it affected me before it affected you.
heart: well, all i know is that she took 2 red pills and now my blood is thinning.
mind: ...it's called aspirin. and, yes, it tends to do that to blood. and seeing as to how this bodily fluid is your lifeline, i guess i'd have you to blame if she somehow happens to cut herself and is unable to clot properly. that would be an open wound with your name written all over it.
heart: you cannot blame me for that. blame the aspirin. that is the man-made substance that you should direct your accusations toward. i'm merely the victim here.
mind: and i suppose that i shouldn't even think of her as the victim because it's all about you. Heart, Heart, Heart. it's all about Heart.
heart: of course not. it's just that whatever she is a victim of, i feel the results and become a victim too.
mind: so what you are essentially saying is that you are a victim by default. a derivative of a victim. 20% of a victim, after you rule out the other body parts that the emotions she suffers from must travel through before it gets to you.
heart: i'm no partial victim! everything she feels, i feel it fully, if not more so! i'm the one who hurts for her! all you do is think about the pain she experiences. i'm the one who has to endure it!
mind: save it. pain is simply weakness leaving the body. maybe i should hope for her injury so that you'd be pained to the point of leaving her completely. that way, she'd be sane without the hindrance of a whining chamber.
heart: how can you wish injury upon her?! she is everything that matters to me, and you should feel the same way. how could you say such a thing! i will call Soul on you and trust me, that is not someone you want to debate with under these--
mind: don't you dare. Soul needs not interfere with these matters. Jeez, Heart, you really need to relax. You are turning redder in the face.
heart: i hope you know that i intend to put you in your place. i won't have you making threats about her. she's such an important part of my world.
mind: and of mine too. what makes you think i don't care about her? i think she's wonderful. she doesn't make a nutcase out of me like most other people do to their Minds.
heart: i love her. do you love her?
mind: ...love is such a...a strong word. i am satisfied with her. complacent to completion. nothing more, nothing less. she doesn't drive me crazy, although she always keeps me busy. but i have no reason to complain. and stop claiming her as if she's your own.
heart: the strongest emotions can be summed up in one word or none at all. if it's not love, then don't call it anything.
mind: that, my throbbing friend, is a conversation for another day. she's about to take a test. she'll be needing me now.

4th Of July: Whose Independence Is It?

In 1775, thirteen British colonies began fighting for freedom from Britain in the American Revolutionary War, leading to the creation of the Declaration of Independence that has made the Fourth of July so popular. Emerging on July 4th, 1776, this notorious document is the root of America's hypocrisy. Thomas Jefferson himself, known as one of the popular signers of the declaration alongside John Hancock, penned his signature to this affirmation of independence, but what kind of act of nobility is this when Jefferson had slaves himself? How can a man stand so firmly behind the infamous words, "We hold these Truths to be self-evident: that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," but falter so uniformly to the support of slavery? As a young politician, he did claim to encourage the prohibition of slavery in the colonies, yet he did nothing to free the ones living on his own property. The fact that he died exactly fifty years after the first Independence Day, on July 4th, 1826, is nothing short of irony in the face of this hypocrisy.

So let us examine the clauses in the above-mentioned quote. For one, I see nothing self-evident in granting freedom to a population that had nothing to do with the wealth and status of America. America was built on the backs of slaves. I see nothing noble in the year 1776 because over a hundred and fifty years prior, in the year of 1619 to be exact, the first American slaves were brought to Jamestown, Virginia. These 20 slaves would be the first of over 40 million to forcefully inhabit what would become the United States of America--a country whose name doesn't even own up to its claims. And equality? The first time I flipped through the three pages of African American reference that I found in an "American history" book in middle school, I learned that slaves were not fully granted freedom until 1865, and even then they were not considered equal. I would praise the toes of any person who could explain how Blacks were included in the phrase "all Men are created equal" when it was nearly impossible to find a White person who addressed African Americans as anything other than "boy" or other derogatory names. Before Abraham Lincoln even thought about writing the Emancipation Proclamation, slavery was still shackling the minds and handcuffing the spirits of Blacks across the country.

So maybe, then, Independence Day should be reconsidered for African Americans. The Emancipation Proclamation was announced on January 1st, 1863, and on January 31st, 1865, the thirteenth amendment of the United States Constitution would reinforce the abolition of slavery. Yet it took almost a year for three-fourths of the 36 states to ratify the constitution. Mississippi, home to the murder of Emmett Till in 1955, didn't ratify the amendment until 1995! Georgia, the final state needed to pass the amendment, ratified it on December 6th of 1865. This perhaps could be the proper Independence Day for African Americans, one that would hold up to the famous clause in the declaration. Yet still, African Americans found themselves not pursuing but fighting for the life, liberty, and happiness that White America had achieved in 1776.

The reconstruction era, noble in idea but faulty in execution, spanned from 1865 to 1877. It attempted to reverse the effects of slavery by instituting schools, living areas, and medical care for the freedmen. Yet sharecropping became a frequent way of living. Grandfather clauses and Black Codes restricted the lifestyles of African Americans, followed by Jim Crow laws that sprouted in the 1890s. Court cases such as Plessy v. Ferguson only reinforced the concept of segregation, a definite negation of the concept of equality as stated in the constitution. "Separate but equal" shouldn't even have been the phrase because Black schools and neighborhoods were never as developed as those of Whites.

This injustice continued straight into the 20th century, whose problem would be the color line as so wisely stated by W.E.B. Du Bois. The civil rights era of the 1950s and 1960s would reinforce African America's belief in true equality and opportunities in this country, where "Land of the Free" can honestly be voiced when singing the national anthem.

Evidently, the Fourth of July has represented nothing except the independence of White Colonial America. Even throughout the centuries following the arrival of the Declaration of Independence, African Americans still had to experience acts of injustice, inhumanity, and inequality. With so much history still left unmentioned, my hope is that this article will make everyone think before they spark fireworks and bite into hot dogs on the year's most popular American summer day. Every time I look at the American Flag, I wonder who those colors belong to. The red, perhaps the blood of every whip-lashed slave; the white, reminiscent of the cotton that built the backbone of this country; the blue, the color of waters that harbor the spirits of millions of noble slaves. I don't know when the true Independence Day should be, but I know that I cannot properly celebrate a national holiday when it took so long for the entire nation to actually be a part of it.

"Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival." --Frederick Douglass, Independence Day Speech in Rochester, 1841.