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Over at the Bad Place, I made a tradition of posting Douglass' "What, To The Slave, Is The Fourth of July," and I intend to carry on that tradition here. Since most versions you read in classes or in textbooks have parts omitted, the link below has the full text of the speech.
(1852) Frederick Douglass, "What, To The Slave, Is The Fourth Of July" •www.blackpast.org On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass was invited to address the citizens of his hometown, Rochester, New York. Whatever the expectations of his audience on that 76th anniversary of the signing of the D...
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"I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us."
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"Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future."
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"At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed." Would that the left would learn this fucking lesson and direct that scorching irony towards the people who deserve it, and not the folks in solidarity with us.
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"To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery..."
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"At the very moment that they are thanking God for the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, and for the right to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences, they are utterly silent in respect to a law which robs religion of its chief significance..."
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"A worship that can be conducted by persons who refuse to give shelter to the houseless, to give bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and who enjoin obedience to a law forbidding these acts of mercy, is a curse, not a blessing to mankind."
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"...a religion which favors the rich against the poor...which divides mankind into two classes, tyrants and slaves; which says to the man in chains, stay there; and to the oppressor, oppress on; it is a religion which may be professed and enjoyed by all the robbers and enslavers of mankind..."
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"You boast of your love of liberty, your superior civilization, and your pure Christianity, while the whole political power of the nation (as embodied in the two great political parties) is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of three millions of your countrymen."
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"You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor."
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You're really citing the Douglass 4th of July speech against the left for doing some kind of unspecified bad thing? Wow that's great reading
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great reading is the fact that you took "I'm posting this speech" as "I'm aiming this speech at the left for doing x thing", which he never said. so apparently you just can't read at all.
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Do you think the sentence “would that the left would learn this fucking lesson” is from Douglass?