The Conversation I Had With My Daughters Ahead of Independence Day
“Is tomorrow the fourth of July?” my 5-year-old exclaims with excitement.
“Yes, it is,” I respond.
“Yay!” she cheers with the cutest toothy grin you’ve ever seen.
My 7-year-old chimes in: “I’m not sure I want to celebrate this holiday.”
“Why is that?” I ask. I already know the answer. We have been studying the American Revolution in history (they’re homeschooled) and we do not shy away from the truth. My daughters know that America was founded on stolen land and built from stolen labor. They know that their ancestors were the enslaved people who provided that stolen labor, resulting in the overwhelming wealth and power of a nation that continues to marginalize and oppress those who like the girls staring back at them in the mirror.
“It’s not fair that freedom was only for white men,” she responds with disgust. We’ve discussed at length the irony and cruelty of the then-American colonies fighting for freedom from so-called tyranny while simultaneously holding enslaved persons captive and continuing to embezzle Indigenous lands and obliterate their population.
It doesn’t take much for kids to recognize when something is unfair. Their little minds yearn for fairness, often to the brink of emotional meltdowns and frustrated parents. “I’m sorry that I cannot control the sizes of the apples!” Most parents find themselves wielding internal screams as they help their children navigate a mostly unfair world. At the moment, we feel it is exasperating because the subject matter of the fairness in question feels rather frivolous. Snack portions, cup colors, and toy comparisons between themselves and their friends. However, upon deeper examination, I’d beg that the exasperation comes from the fact that we have discovered this world’s unchanging unfairness, and thus, accepted it. We’ve given up on making things fair. Why bother when we always lose? Now, as parents, we wrestle with having to teach our children that they, too, will often lose the game of fairness. We don’t wish for this to be their reality. Our hearts long to make their lives fair at the snap of a finger. It pains us that we have to teach these lessons instead, resurfacing old unfairness wounds in the process.
As the mother of Black children, I not only have to teach my children about general life unfairness, but I must also teach them the realities of racist unfairness that have infiltrated American society and culture since the inception of this democratic experiment. The privilege to simply ignore such realities does not exist. My children are Black girls who will grow up to be Black women and who will be treated how America treats Black women. There is no escaping this. Thus, our conversations around this holiday, as well as any other day about America, will tell the whole story. My children will not learn a fairytale about manifest destiny and brave men who dared to fight for liberty for all, as our ancestors, and thus our people, were never included in the world all.
However, for far too long, most Americans have abused their privilege by ignoring the truths about the so-called founding of this country. America has long believed that it upholds, and continues to uphold, the principles upon which it was founded. Moreover, it has remarkably convinced most of the population that it has genuinely done so. Thus, the privilege of ignoring the truth has been central to our democracy and its ability to function as intended.
We have been taught to see certain points in American history as “mishaps” or “detours” from the original ideal of “liberty for all.” We have been taught to believe that the mission of the Founding Fathers was one of morality and dignity — a dream of a nation that is “for the people,” realized. Slavery? Oh, a mishap. A whoops. An accidental veer off of liberty’s path. The mass murder and displacement of Indigenous peoples? Another whoopsie. Jim Crow? Oops. The oppression of women? Well, that was just normal, wasn’t it? America has framed itself to be a nearly-perfect nation that happens to have a few whoopsie moments as if those whoopsie moments are equivalent to forgetting to take out the trash. The truth, of course, is that America was founded on the ideal that elite white men are the only humans included in the “We” of the We the People and the “All” of the Liberty for All. Every moment, decision, system, law, ordinance, and cultural practice thereafter has been in service to that sole founding principle. The superiority and power of elite white men remain to be protected, at all costs, to this day.
America packaged this founding principle in the most elaborate metaphorical gift wrap it could find, complete with the sparkling bow of the American dream atop the package, and dangled it in front of our faces, making the chase of it as irresistible as possible.
That chase has become our idol, and that chase, along with the privileged ignorance of the truth, has been how America has continued to function as always intended. The rose-colored glasses of whiteness is the addiction of the American people. None are immune to the addiction — even those who suffer under the marginalization and oppression that keeps the sparkly package dangling in the air. Still, most of us who suffer under that oppression have never fallen for the okey-doke. We’ve taken those rose-colored glasses and thrown them right in the trash. We do our due diligence to inform our children so they do not reach in the trash and put those glasses back on. We have tough conversations. We reveal the truth. We refuse to comply with America’s deceptions.
If the rest of America would just take off their rose-colored glasses, we might finally have the opportunity to fight to make America what it has always pretended to be. It is in the ignorance of the truth that our nation has been able to light a fire to this democratic experiment, adding nothing but fuel to the flames, because most of its constituents are too busy staring at that sparkly package with those dang rose-colored glasses. Marginalized communities, especially the Black community, and especially Black women, have been warning America to remove those glasses for centuries. However, America does not listen to who they have placed at the very bottom of the racial caste system and disregarded as inhuman. As a result, America faces the repercussions of a society engulfed in flames due to centuries of overlooked opportunities to acknowledge the blaze and grab the extinguisher.
The flames are encroaching upon us even more now. The fire has finally spread to every person group, marginalized or non, which is always inevitable in an oppressive society. Oppressors believe they can start a fire upon those they’ve deemed inferior, but the fire always spreads. The damage will always catch up to those who threw the gasoline and lit the match. I don’t have to list all of the ways in which our democratic experiment is on its last leg. We’ve all seen the news. Plus, I’m saving that for another article.
The irony is not lost on me, nor should it escape your notice, how this country was 'founded' by wealthy white men fleeing another wealthy white man's control, only to become those very figures dictating to everyone else. That is all America has ever panned out to be — another land to serve, protect, and create lordship out of wealthy white men by way of some of the most cruel, savage, inhumane systems of oppression modern history has ever seen. These systems of oppression were not merely whoopsies. They were intentional acts to ensure the overall system, society, and culture of white supremacy remained untouchable no matter how many fought against it. You may think I am only referring to the major three oppressive systems we think of when I speak of this (colonization, chattel slavery, and Jim Crow), but it is every smaller, yet mighty, act of intentional oppression that has written the white supremacy narrative of America. The death of Reconstruction, Black codes, vagrancy laws, laws about who can have what job, housing discrimination, loan discrimination and duplicity, voter suppression, economic oppression, drug and crime policies, immigration oppression, Supreme Court decisions that rule against human rights, January 6th, Project 2025, and the thousands of local, state, and other national ordinances I am sure to have missed. (I guess I decided to list some examples after all.)
In 1776, America became nothing more than a remixed, more perilous version of the country it ran from. That is the truth that I tell my children about this day of Independence. To keep things fair, since that is so important to children, as it should be, I am sure to include the few values that America has gotten right. I teach them that there are nations with far fewer freedoms than we have here, even though we’ve had to fight for most of them to exist. I tell them that we still have the right and freedom to vote, even though that freedom has been manipulated and suppressed for most of us. All the more reason to ensure we are in that line on Election Day. (They always accompany me — one of the joys of homeschooling.) I teach them that there are countries that do not allow women to work at all, but because of the icons that came before them, no one can take away their right to exist in the workplace. They also know the truth about unequal pay, poor childcare, and healthcare policies, and how our society still does not value women even though we are allowed to work in ways we never were before. I teach them all of the history. I let them feel the heat of the flames and see the sparkly package that America advertises — just without the glasses so that they can see it for what it is. As a result, at the tender ages of 7 and 5, they see the potential. They have the heart to continue the resistant legacy of their ancestors and fight to make this nation rebuild itself into the nation it should have been all along.
That is the result of teaching the truth. A heart for true liberation for all.
And, no, they aren’t too young for these conversations. Their responses should clearly showcase this.
My 7-year-old is still indifferent about celebrating today, but she is excited about the fireworks, like her 5-year-old sister. They should be. Fireworks are magical to kids. As they stare at those fireworks with conflicting joy and pain, I’ll be staring at them with similar dissonance. I cannot help but feel hopeful as I stare at the beautiful souls who will one day be leaders in this country. Their heart for learning the truth and seeking to dismantle white supremacy in their little worlds (they aim to explore every culture with curiosity and admiration, intentionally centering perspectives outside of whiteness) brings me hope that their generation will be the generation to finally put an end to this madness. On the other hand, my heart grieves the failures of our generation and every generation beforehand that have led to our children having to be the ones to clean up the mess.
If only America had removed its glasses and reached for the extinguisher.
If only America hadn’t deceptively ignored the truth.
If only we could truly celebrate freedom today.