July 5th -- As a White Man, I'm just Catching Up.

Yesterday, I posted a video expressing my outrage at the passage of "The One Big Beautiful Bill Act." Like many across the country, I'm appalled by our nation's slide into rank meanness, authoritarianism and corruption under the Trump Administration. And I had the thought, yesterday, that saying "Happy July 4th" was, for me -- for the first time really -- something of a conflicted sentiment given the state of the country.

But then it also occurred to me how that sentiment exposes the white privilege that bathes my life. Sitting here today, July 5, 2025, I realized that as a white man, I was just catching up.

On July 5th, 1852, Frederick Douglass made the speech "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July." It is a searing indictment of how, at that time, the United States had so utterly failed to live up to its founding creed. 173 years later, while our nation has undeniably made great strides in the struggle for full civil rights, there STILL remains a yawning gap between the ideals of our founding and the reality of the lived experience of many black and brown people today in our nation. And so I am very belatedly joining this tradition of the July 5th protest.

If you have yet to hear that poignant address by Douglass, take the time this July 5th to hear his thundering words, brilliantly voiced by the late James Earl Jones, as they ricochet across the 17 interceding decades to land with power, once again, upon our ears today.