|
Jul 05
2007
|
 |
I recently read an article facilitated by The Ohio State University’s Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. titled, Whites Underestimate the Cost of Being Black. The basic observation of the research by Phil Mazzocco is “While there has been progress in making racial conditions in American more equal, there's clearly a lot more work to be done,” he said. “Blacks and whites are not experiencing the same America.”
As we approach this Independence Day, I began to ponder the “cost of being Black.”
Independence has a very different meaning for African Americans, and that leaves many of us ambivalent as we watch the fireworks and hear the marching bands and see the parades celebrating our nation’s independence. Freedom for Black Americans came more than 100 years after the Declaration of Independence, and still is characterized by huge gaps in the fruits of independence.
As we look back on our own independence, and evaluate our progress, we are not far removed from the indignities observed by Frederick Douglass , in his Independence Day Speech on the fourth of July, 1852. At that point in the history of our nation – he made this observation:
“At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation's ear, I would today pour out 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
