If you were African-American living in the era of President Barack Obama, would you hate the Fourth of July because it reminded you of slavery and economic inequality?
You would if your name was Julianne Malveaux and you were the syndicated columnist that also serves as the president of Bennett College, the historically black women's school in Greensboro, North Carolina.
So disdainful of America's most-revered national holiday is Malveaux that she admitted in her July 2 USA Today op-ed, "I have never been big on the Fourth of July. Most years, I took great pleasure in reading the powerful Frederick Douglass speech, 'The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro.'"
Though written in 1852, this college president actually sees relevance to modern day America in these words:
"What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July," he thundered to a crowd in Rochester, N.Y. "I answer, a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity ... your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery."
Imagine that. A black man is now the most powerful elected leader on the face of the planet. Another black man is the most powerful law enforcement official in the country, and under the previous administration, the Secretaries of State were black, one of them also being a woman.
Regardless, the president of a mostly black women's college sees nothing but racial injustice and economic inequality around her:
Our nation has come a long way since 1852, but for many African Americans, shouts of liberty are still hollow mockery. Unemployment is a scourge on all Americans, but the black unemployment rate, at 15.3% in May, is nearly twice the white rate. Every economic indicator - income, wealth, homeownership - screams inequality. [...]
Despite his scathing commentary, Douglass said, "I do not despair of this country." Nor do I. But progress has been so slowed, optimism so dimmed, and some criticisms of our president so blatantly racial that I'm returning to my ritual of reading Frederick Douglass, if only as a reminder that the struggle for justice and equality must continue.
So, in Malveaux's mind like so many of her ilk, equal opportunity isn't enough. Until all Americans possess the same things, the nation is unjust.
Which means this is not about equal opportunity but equal outcome, an inconvenient truth her kind refuses to admit as they shout "racist" at any white person more successful than them.
Of course, what should one expect from a serial-hater that in 1994 actually wished -- on national television -- for Clarence Thomas to die:
I guess for folks like Malveaux, racial and economic equality need only apply to black liberals.
Sadly, this is a racial hypocrisy quite common amongst so-called journalists today. Doesn't make sense, does it?
On the other hand, Malveaux has contributed to The Progressive, a magazine whose editor also hates the Fourth of July.
Like peas in a progressive pod.
