American Horror Story

Image generated by ChatGPT using DALL·E, an AI model by OpenAI, using the prompt, "create a simple doll image of Frederick Douglass."

I contemplated writing a "Happy 4th of July" post, the holiday that celebrates the day in 1776 when the Thirteen Colonies declared independence from British rule. However, not all American people could celebrate their independence in 1776, and life, as a whole, was not happy for them. Enslaved Americans were used for free labor, sold back and forth between plantations, separated from family, fed scraps, bred, denied education, brutalized, and, if they survived, endured other unimaginable situations daily. 

Things eventually changed in America, and chattel slavery was outlawed, only to be replaced by other legal methods to keep Black people in check, never being allowed the full freedoms and privileges of mainstream society. Yet, survival and achievements by African Americans occurred despite insurmountable obstacles.

Here we are, 249 years later, with an unchecked government chipping democracy away, stripping citizens of human and civil rights, and any past gains to further enrich the wealthy, all under the guise of making America great again. When has this country ever been truly great? 

 

Since January 20, 2025, life in America for most citizens who desire a government of the people, by the people, and for the people has been nightmarish. It is as though we are in the midst of a never-ending horror story that becomes more frightening each day with calamity after calamity, corruption after corruption, deflection after deflection, rooted in the head of government's constant grifting and unquenched thirst for authoritarian power.

Frederick Douglass, circa 1850s in a Creative Commons image

There's no time for celebration. “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine, You may rejoice, I must mourn.”—Frederick Douglass, July 5, 1852

Read Douglass' speech, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" and ask yourself, have we all become enslaved by the current authoritarian-like, horrific regime with spineless politicians and the stacked Supreme Court allowing such lawlessness? What can we do to right the overwhelming corruption when the cards are stacked against us? Will there be an uprising between the people and the government? What is the answer? It is not as simple as voting them out when the voting system is rigged by and in favor of corrupt politicians. I wonder what Frederick Douglass would ask now.

An upside-down American flag is a distress signal.

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There are countless items to collect and write about. Black dolls chose me.

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