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> "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there, they

> "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth." > What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? 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 sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour. Douglas was woke af. It looks like there's a maritime museum dedicated to him and Isaac Myers right near where Douglas lived in Baltimore. I'm a bit ashamed to admit I had no idea this existed, and I lived there for 5 years. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Frederick+Douglass-Isaac+Myers+Maritime+Park/@39.2797457,-76.596331,15.75z/data=!4m12!1m6!3m5!1s0x89c80378c0a47ba9:0xa6cb5051d69eeb42!2sThames+Street+Wharf!8m2!3d39.2796024!4d-76.5967541!3m4!1s0x89c80378bc2b6d51:0x595b256d3568d579!8m2!3d39.2794286!4d-76.5960038 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Frederick+Douglass-Isaac+M...

jernfrost 8y ago
I've always found hypocrisy to be an American specialty like no other. Who else exerts so much time talking passionately about freedom while at the same time locking up more people than anybody else on the planet and invading more countries than anybody else on the planet. The Chinese and Russians e.g. seem a bit more honest about the machinations.
- geofft 8y ago
  This song has been on my mind recently for just how much of a lie it is: If tomorrow all the things were gone I'd worked for all my life And I had to start again with just my children and my wife I'd thank my lucky stars to living here today 'Cause the flag still stands for freedom and they can't take that away
- peterwwillis 8y ago
  I find it funny you're being downvoted, as if people just don't like hearing the truth. America houses more prisoners than any country in the world (around 2.4 Million). More than both China and Brazil combined, the next two highest (Brazil has recently beat out Russia for third highest prison population). To give some comparison, the combined population of China and Brazil is 1.6 Billion, compared to America's 326 Million. About one in three Americans has a criminal record. http://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Americans-with-Criminal-Records-Poverty-and-Opportunity-Profile.pdf http://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/...
  - jernfrost 8y ago
    Holy crap!!! 1/3rd that is insane. What is that not a bigger topic? I guess that explains that the first time ever I met anybody who had been in prison was when I moved to the US (I had enough after a year and went back. Got too much police state vibes). Don't get me wrong. There are LOTS of things I love about the US. The country fascinates me immensely. There are many things Americans can be proud of. I just wish there was more acceptance towards the idea that the US is in fact quite flawed and not miles ahead of everybody else in freedom as they like to portray it. It almost feels a bit insulting when you interact with Americans and they just assume you live in a dictatorship, because hey only Americans have freedom. That mindset can't be by an accident. It must be from the constant harping on in school and in public about how amazing and free the US is.
    - peterwwillis 8y ago
      It's not a big topic because systemic racism and political and social neglect have made it normal. The simplest way to look at it is this. Some minorities in this country have been forced to be poor due to a combination of social and state-sanctioned actions accumulated for a century or two. People in poverty often end up associated with crime and drug use. As a massive amount of cheap, highly addictive illegal drugs pours into poor areas, crime and drug use climbs. The political system decides that the solution is to punish people more, the thinking apparently being that punishing them harsher will somehow alleviate the source of the crime and drugs: poverty. So the minorities targeted by racist policies, mainly poor black people, get locked up 6x more than anyone else. When they get out of jail, they have even fewer opportunities to make a living. The end result is a cycle of poverty, crime, prison, poverty, crime, prison. To address this, you basically have to state that 1) America is deeply affected by systemic racism, 2) Politicians sentenced poor people to languish in prison rather than help them rise out of poverty, 3) Our citizens don't care much about each other. It's very easy to ignore a big problem like our insane prison problem when the people affected don't live in your community or they're locked up in prison. The poor black communities who are affected have become completely normalized to it; every black person I know has a member of their family who has been to or is in prison. Even though keeping people in prison costs us tens of billions of dollars, and continues a revolving door of poor people, new prisoners, crime, illegal drugs, and racism, we refuse to address the problem. We will continue to do so as long as we refuse to look hard at our own complicity.

jernfrost 8y ago

I've always found hypocrisy to be an American specialty like no other. Who else exerts so much time talking passionately about freedom while at the same time locking up more people than anybody else on the planet and invading more countries than anybody else on the planet. The Chinese and Russians e.g. seem a bit more honest about the machinations.

geofft 8y ago
This song has been on my mind recently for just how much of a lie it is: If tomorrow all the things were gone I'd worked for all my life And I had to start again with just my children and my wife I'd thank my lucky stars to living here today 'Cause the flag still stands for freedom and they can't take that away
peterwwillis 8y ago
I find it funny you're being downvoted, as if people just don't like hearing the truth. America houses more prisoners than any country in the world (around 2.4 Million). More than both China and Brazil combined, the next two highest (Brazil has recently beat out Russia for third highest prison population). To give some comparison, the combined population of China and Brazil is 1.6 Billion, compared to America's 326 Million. About one in three Americans has a criminal record. http://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Americans-with-Criminal-Records-Poverty-and-Opportunity-Profile.pdf http://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/...
- jernfrost 8y ago
  Holy crap!!! 1/3rd that is insane. What is that not a bigger topic? I guess that explains that the first time ever I met anybody who had been in prison was when I moved to the US (I had enough after a year and went back. Got too much police state vibes). Don't get me wrong. There are LOTS of things I love about the US. The country fascinates me immensely. There are many things Americans can be proud of. I just wish there was more acceptance towards the idea that the US is in fact quite flawed and not miles ahead of everybody else in freedom as they like to portray it. It almost feels a bit insulting when you interact with Americans and they just assume you live in a dictatorship, because hey only Americans have freedom. That mindset can't be by an accident. It must be from the constant harping on in school and in public about how amazing and free the US is.
  - peterwwillis 8y ago
    It's not a big topic because systemic racism and political and social neglect have made it normal. The simplest way to look at it is this. Some minorities in this country have been forced to be poor due to a combination of social and state-sanctioned actions accumulated for a century or two. People in poverty often end up associated with crime and drug use. As a massive amount of cheap, highly addictive illegal drugs pours into poor areas, crime and drug use climbs. The political system decides that the solution is to punish people more, the thinking apparently being that punishing them harsher will somehow alleviate the source of the crime and drugs: poverty. So the minorities targeted by racist policies, mainly poor black people, get locked up 6x more than anyone else. When they get out of jail, they have even fewer opportunities to make a living. The end result is a cycle of poverty, crime, prison, poverty, crime, prison. To address this, you basically have to state that 1) America is deeply affected by systemic racism, 2) Politicians sentenced poor people to languish in prison rather than help them rise out of poverty, 3) Our citizens don't care much about each other. It's very easy to ignore a big problem like our insane prison problem when the people affected don't live in your community or they're locked up in prison. The poor black communities who are affected have become completely normalized to it; every black person I know has a member of their family who has been to or is in prison. Even though keeping people in prison costs us tens of billions of dollars, and continues a revolving door of poor people, new prisoners, crime, illegal drugs, and racism, we refuse to address the problem. We will continue to do so as long as we refuse to look hard at our own complicity.