I’ve re-read and posted Frederick Douglas’ essay, What To The Slave is the Fourth of July, every year for the last seven or eight years reasons I explain below. It’s one of the most important pieces of political writing by any American. It’s never been more important as a reminder of the original sin of our country, racism.
But this year, I’m sad to say that it’s also never been more questionable because the end of Douglas’s piece is a paean to the ideals of the Enlightenment and their power to overcome the darkness of racism and bigotry. That power is fading before us. We need to do everything we can to restore it, before it is too late.
I’m going to leave the rest of what I usually write about the text here, even though I’m far less confident than I’ve ever been that we can live up to what Douglas wanted for this country.
I post this every year for a few reasons.
1. It’s one of the most important pieces of political writing by any American, as important as the Federalist Papers to understanding our country.
2. It’s a powerful indictment of the great failure of the American politics, the racism that has infected it from the beginning and continues to do so now.
3. Its message never goes out of date. And by its message I mean two things. One message, which is the bulk of the essay explains why the independence, freedom and democracy we celebrate on this holiday can’t mean the same to the descendants of those who were and are denied freedom and democracy at the origins of this country and for most of its history, and in many respects, continuing to the present day.
4. And the second message expresses the belief that the liberal enlightenment will lead to progress on racial and other matters.
Both messages are important. If we want progress we have to recognize both how far we have to go and have some determination and optimism about getting there.
We live at a time when some “advanced” thought on the left seems to reject those ideals, despite their being critical to the inspiration we find in Marx and the Democratic Socialist tradition and despite the worst features of our society being the result of the corruption of Enlightenment liberal ideals by neo-liberals and libertarians and the rejection of them by authoritarians and fascists.
Douglas, in other words, shows us how to be both critical of our country as find it while remaining inspired to political action by the ideals we fall so short in realizing. If we want to move this country in a better direction, there is no better guide than this brilliant work.