Happy Fourth, Y'all
Bear with me.
Whoever decided that the Supreme Court should announce their decisions right before July 4th clearly never had their rights subject to said Court. This Supreme Court, especially, which was stolen right out from under our feet. Twice. After Justice Scalia died in February 2016, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to even hold a vote for President Obama’s nominee because it was an election year. Fast forward to September 2020, when Justice Ginsberg passed away, and suddenly McConnell had no qualms about filling a seat on the Supreme Court in an election year even though voting had already started in some states.
It’s enough to make you want to gather everyone’s fireworks and hotdogs up and pitch them into the sea. The orcas are doing more for us than many of our politicians and elected officials. Let them have the party instead.
In just the last week, the Supreme Court overturned Affirmative Action, a policy meant to address in part the legacy slavery and discrimination built into the foundation of our country. Meanwhile they allowed bigotry against queer people in a case brought by a woman who does not want to have to make a wedding website for a gay couple, even though, as it turns out, she has never even been asked to. The Supreme Court also struck down President Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, while having absolutely nothing to say about the millions of dollars in PPP loans that have been forgiven for corporations, benefiting many of the harshest critics of student loan forgiveness. And let’s not forget that just one year has passed since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion.
So now I’m $10,000 poorer, with less bodily autonomy, living in a country that is less fair, less safe, and less healthy because Republicans see the Constitution as a Pirates code - more of what you’d call guidelines than actual rules. Celebrate what, exactly?
And yet, celebrate we must.
Because here’s the thing, Mitch McConnell doesn’t care about America. He cares about being rich, and he cares about making sure his friends stay rich. Donald Trump, the president who appointed justices to all of these stolen seats? He doesn’t care about America either - in fact, for him democracy is at best an inconvenience, but more often something to sell off for parts. Chief Justice John Roberts claims to value the sanctity of the Supreme Court above all else, and yet at least two of his fellow conservative Justices are essentially bought and paid for by their assigned billionaire and that seems fine by him. The Republican primary is a race to see who best appeals to the very worst of us and Republicans in Congress are much more concerned with politically motivated show trials and conspiracy theories than they are in solving any actual problems.
They cloak themselves in the flag, claim unassailable patriotism and try to gaslight us by the millions with nostalgia for a so called wholesome Americana we are excluded from. But we don’t have to let them.
I write a version of this every year. We are a country built by a stolen people on a stolen land, and we’d do well to remember that. But when we celebrate July 4th we do not have to celebrate the myths that erase that fact - instead we celebrate the true rebels, the other half of the story. We celebrate abolitionists and the Civil Rights movement, the end of slavery and ever expanding suffrage. We celebrate immigrants who honor us with their culture and their presence. We celebrate the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Voting Rights Act and the millions who take to the streets to protest police brutality. Let’s celebrate Harvey Milk and Harriet Tubman. Let’s celebrate water protectors and the Land Back movement. Let’s celebrate mutual aid and block parties and barbecues. Celebrate by telling your story, by listening to others. Celebrate by running for office. Celebrate by phone banking. Celebrate by registering to vote.
We cannot and should not avoid our history. We owe it to ourselves and to the people who were kidnapped, broken, buried on our way here to tell the truth, to remember their stories, to address the inequality and disparity we created, and to continue their fights. And when we celebrate, let’s celebrate all those who fought to fulfill America’s promise, to finish this great unfinished symphony, to build a country that values all of our voices, that makes room for all our stories.
Because, at the end of the day, the Supreme Court is not just six conservative Justices undermining democracy and stripping us of our hard won freedom for their own gain. The Supreme Court is also Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who wrote “With let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, today, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces ‘colorblindness for all’ by legal fiat. But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life.”
And Justice Elena Kagan, who wrote: “Congress is of course a democratic institution; it responds, even if imperfectly, to the preferences of American voters. And agency officials, though not themselves elected, serve a President with the broadest of all political constituencies. But this Court? It is, by design, as detached as possible from the body politic. That is why the Court is supposed to stick to its business — to decide only cases and controversies, and to stay away from making this Nation’s policy about subjects like student-loan relief.”
And it is even Justice Neil Gorsuch, whose commitment to the truth when writing to uphold the Indian Child Welfare Act is essential: “The Indian Child Welfare Act did not emerge from a vacuum. It came as a direct response to the mass removal of Indian children from their families during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s by state officials and private parties,” Gorsuch wrote.”In all its many forms, the dissolution of the Indian family has had devastating effects on children and parents alike. It has also presented an existential threat to the continued vitality of Tribes — something many federal and state officials over the years saw as a feature, not as a flaw.”
When we celebrate, let’s not celebrate the myth. And let’s not hand off the story of our nation to those that would strip it off its truth. They don’t love America and they don’t get to own the party. Instead, let’s celebrate each other, and the country we’re building together.
Happy Fourth, y’all. Have a beer and a hotdog1, and then let’s get back to work.
Metaphorically, at least, as I do not like beer and I know not all of you like hotdogs.