Democratic Rep. Cori Bush disputed the Fourth of July’s message of independence on Sunday, saying the holiday only represents freedom “for white people.”
“When they say that the 4th of July is about American freedom, remember this: the freedom they’re referring to is for white people,” Bush, a member of the left-wing “Squad,” wrote on Twitter amid celebrations of the 245th Independence Day. “This land is stolen land and Black people still aren’t free.”
“We know what our own freedom looks like,” Bush wrote hours later in a follow-up tweet. “End the slavery permitted under the 13th amendment. End the War on Drugs. End police violence. End health care, housing, and education apartheid. WE are the experts on our own liberation. And we won’t stop until it’s won.”
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Bush’s analysis garnered sympathy and praise among some tweeters.
“Yes because if any Black person is successful in life it proves Black people are free, with equal opportunity,” author Tim Wise, who describes himself as an antiracism educator, sarcastically wrote in response to a tweet urging people to consider Bush’s success as a rebuttal to her claims. “So when Madam CJ Walker became a millionaire in 1911, obviously all Black people could have done it and it’s their own fault if they didn’t. Airtight logic…”
Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters questioned the Declaration of Independence’s guarantee of freedom in a series of tweets of her own, pointing to states’ “voter suppression laws” and the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other African Americans at the hands of police.
“Need I say more?” Waters wrote on Sunday.
Others pushed back on the notion that life in the United States has not improved for black Americans since 1776.
“Black people are free. To say they aren’t is to lie,” Seth Dillon, CEO of satire website the Babylon Bee, responded to Wise. “And they have every opportunity in this country, including the opportunity to run for Congress, like Cori Bush. To say they don’t is to lie. For what purpose do you want them to think of themselves as slaves when they aren’t?”
“Hateful, divisive lies,” Republican Sen. Ted Cruz wrote in response. “The Left hates America. Believe them when they tell you this.”
“You can stop with the racism now Cori and put your race card back in your pocket,” Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote. “4th of July is freedom for all from a tyrannical government.”
The rise of critical race theory, or the philosophy that systemic racism is enshrined in U.S. institutions, has prompted many on the Left to suggest the birth of the U.S. was not in 1776 with the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, but rather in 1619, at the outset of slavery.
The theory has been met with controversy. Those on the Left have celebrated the philosophy. Nikole Hannah-Jones, the founder of the 1619 Project, was granted tenure at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill after a weekslong fight about her promotion of CRT.
Military leaders have also signaled a degree of support for CRT in military training, with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, who is white, testifying before Congress that he wants “to understand white rage.”
“I’ve read Karl Marx. I’ve read Lenin,” Milley said. “That doesn’t make me a communist. So, what is wrong with understanding … the country which we are here to defend?”
“I want to understand white rage, and I’m white,” he continued, adding that the military should be “widely read” on various topics, including race relations.
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The Right has been critical of the philosophy, with Sen. Tom Cotton, an Army veteran, slamming its use in the military as detrimental to unit cohesion.
“We cannot have an Army, a Navy, a Marine Corps, an Air Force, or a Space Force where young troopers are looking to their left and right and seeing not fellow citizens who took an oath to the Constitution, someone who’s willing to lay down their life not just for their country but to keep you alive,” he said during a virtual event hosted by the Heritage Foundation on Thursday.
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Tags: News, Independence Day, Declaration of Independence, Democrats, Congress, Race and Diversity
Original Author: Jeremy Beaman
Original Location: Squad member says Fourth of July is about freedom ‘for white people’