This year the 4th of July feels more distant than others for a number of reasons. Several weeks ago on June 19th we celebrated 150 years of emancipation with Juneteenth (which happened for slaves in 1865, not 1776), Black churches are burning in the South, and unarmed Black children, women, and men are still dying in the streets for no other reason than the color of their skin and on this day the words of Frederick Douglass ring ever true.
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour forth a stream, a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and the crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced. -“What to the Slave is the Fourth of July.” July 5, 1852.
As a Black woman fighting for social justice both in the games community and the world as a whole, I choose to take up the mantle of my activist predecessors and I will speak in a voice that is loud and unwavering. One that is aflame with the passion that burns in my heart, that will shake the very foundation of hegemony, and that ultimately calls back to history and projects into the future, with the hope of making change. This is my celebration of independence.
