What, to the Average American, is America Turning 250?

Frederick Douglass named his 1852 keynote address, What to a Slave is the Fourth of July?, to highlight the nation’s most glaring and long-lasting hypocrisy: the freedoms that underline its founding that were propped up by slavery. What was there to rejoice when his people were not still free?

Although history taught us that slavery was outlawed by the 14^th Amendment, we know that The Land of the Free still has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Everyone outside of a cell is struggling to afford groceries and housing within a crumbling and largely artificial job market, fighting to receive quality healthcare, and also still enjoy our lives. Try as we might, we are all slaves to American capitalism and consumerism.

So what room do we, as Americans, have for celebration?

This year marks the 250^th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the first of key documents that birthed America. I know that those founding fathers, as they thought about future generations of Americans living and working alongside those self-evident truths, didn’t picture a government that’s actively at war with its citizens.

It was clear the American empire was dying when We The People became Them The Corporation a decade ago. Now, elites are crashing the economy, cashing in for the most profit, and making sure to price hike moral essentials like food and housing on their way out. They don’t believe in American innovation, although it’s the main selling point in their ad propagandas that are begging us to engage with AI while it pollutes our water and skies. Literacy is at an all-time low as those same elites want to end the information age and sell knowledge back to the masses like a utility no different than electricity or gas. They want America great for the wealthy few while the rest of us fend for ourselves.

On the global stage, America has lost its moral high ground because our highest government officials keep voting against basic human rights in mixed company, and are often the only country to do so. Not to mention the racial injustice, the concerted effort to strip away human rights inside our border, the proud funding of a genocide, and their connections to the world’s most infamous pedophile and sex trafficker are no longer hidden. The world has stopped believing the myth of American exceptionalism and idealism. They know the average American citizen won’t see the American dream because it’s been legislated out of existence.

The systems and belief that America is the greatest has never been true. What has always been great is the people.

We’re seeing that now, ironically, as the world visits us for its favorite game and we read stories of foreigners touring small town America. They’re falling in love with our food, our hospitality, the graciousness that’s baked into our pockets of community. The diversity of our cultures is the beauty of our country, and the very thing the current administration wants to destroy.

So, no, there’s no official celebration guaranteed to earn the ears and eyes of every American. That spectacle at the People’s House two weeks ago was abhorrent and gaudish. Each generation has seen through the veil enough to know that no one is coming to save us, especially those we’ve elected to represent us. We lean on each other and our communities when we’re forced to endure another manmade catastrophe or unprecedented natural disaster.

We’re all we got, and that’s what binds us as Americans.

Rebellious Magazine celebrates America’s 250th anniversary with a series of featured events and voices that examine our American past, present, and future.