Why America Doesn’t Deserve to Celebrate Independence
A brief overview of what Independence Day means for millions of non-white, non-straight, elderly and young folks.
Each year on July 4th, Americans gather to commemorate the nation’s independence with fireworks, parades, and patriotic displays. But behind the red, white, and blue lies a truth that complicates the celebration: America was founded on freedom for some, and oppression for many. The ideals written in the Declaration of Independence—liberty, equality, and justice—have never fully applied to the very people who built and sustained this country. From slavery to mass incarceration, from Indigenous genocide to anti-immigrant policies, the story of American independence has always been paired with deep contradictions. For millions, this holiday is not a symbol of freedom—it’s a reminder of a system that still denies it.
When the United States declared independence in 1776, nearly half a million Black people were enslaved in the colonies. The same document that claimed “all men are created equal” allowed the continued exploitation, torture, and dehumanization of Black bodies. Slavery was not a side note—it was foundational to the economy and the birth of the American nation. Even after emancipation, systems like sharecropping, Jim Crow laws, redlining, and police brutality continued the legacy of control and racial terror. Today, that legacy lives on through mass incarceration. The U.S. has the highest prison population in the world, disproportionately filled with Black and Brown people, often for nonviolent offenses. Beyond being caged, prisoners—particularly in the South—are compelled to perform agricultural labor for free or next to nothing, often harvesting crops like cotton, soy, wheat, and vegetables under brutal conditions. In places like Angola, Louisiana, and Texas, incarcerated individuals work in fields on former plantation lands, producing food that ends up in mainstream supply chains with minimal or no pay. Many are paid mere cents per hour—or nothing—and refusal to work can result in punishment, solitary confinement, or hindered parole opportunities.
While the lands are harvested by modern day enslaved people, the lands themselves tell a story of violence - lands stolen from Native tribes through displacement, broken treaties, and massacres. Generations were subjected to forced assimilation through residential schools, cultural erasure, and systemic poverty.
Many Native communities across the United States continue to endure severe underfunding in healthcare, education, and infrastructure—failures rooted in generations of broken treaties, systemic racism, and federal neglect. As of 2023, approximately 1 in 10 Native Americans lack access to safe drinking water, and Native households are 19 times more likely than white households to live without indoor plumbing. Over 40% of Native American housing is considered substandard, and schools serving Native youth receive significantly less funding per student compared to other public schools. Food insecurity is also alarmingly high: nearly 1 in 4 Native Americans experience hunger, with limited access to fresh and affordable groceries due to rural isolation and economic disinvestment. These inequities are not just persistent—they are normalized and largely ignored in the national narrative, making invisibility yet another form of injustice Native communities are forced to navigate.
Meanwhile, our modern immigration policies echo the xenophobic and racist practices of the past. From the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to the internment of over 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II—two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens—America has a long history of criminalizing “the other.” In recent years, the same patterns have resurfaced: between 2017 and 2021, more than 5,500 children were separated from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border under the “zero tolerance” policy, with hundreds still not reunited as of 2023. Immigration detention surged dramatically under the Trump administration, reaching over 56,000 people held in ICE custody by mid-2025—a 40% increase since early that year—with roughly one-third having no criminal history. Congress approved $45 billion to expand detention capacity to 100,000 beds, along with funding for border walls and surveillance.
These aggressive enforcement policies drew widespread criticism for violating due process and disproportionately targeting vulnerable communities, including immigrants attending court hearings. Under the Biden administration, while some punitive policies like the Public Charge Rule and Title 42 expulsions have been reversed, deportations remain high, with over 360,000 removals in fiscal year 2023 and detention numbers still exceeding 263,000. Private detention centers continue to operate widely despite allegations of abuse and neglect. Asylum seekers face backlogs and restrictive policies that severely limit access to protection. The rhetoric from political leaders often remains hostile, signaling that immigrants—especially from Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East—are unwelcome. Bans on asylum, militarized borders, and swift deportations reinforce the message that citizenship and belonging are conditional, racialized, and weaponized to maintain exclusion.
But these anti-human policies don’t just impact Black and Brown communities—they also severely target LGBTQ+ people, especially transgender individuals and LGBTQ+ youth, making the so-called land of the free increasingly hostile. As of 2025, over 20 states have enacted or proposed laws banning or restricting gender-affirming care for minors, including Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, and Florida, where healthcare providers risk criminal charges for offering such care. More than a dozen states, including Tennessee, Florida, and Idaho, have passed laws banning or restricting drag performances in public or at events accessible to minors. In education, at least 15 states—such as Florida, South Dakota, and Missouri—have introduced or passed laws banning LGBTQ+ inclusive books or curriculums, with Florida’s “Parental Rights in Education” law (dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law) prohibiting discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in early grades.
These measures are far from symbolic; they form part of a coordinated national effort to erase queer and trans existence from public life, as evidenced by the rise in state-level legislation targeting LGBTQ+ rights. Meanwhile, hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people have surged by over 30% nationwide since 2020, with transgender people, particularly Black and Brown trans women, disproportionately targeted. Ironically, the very people celebrating “freedom” on the Fourth of July are often the same ones promoting censorship, discrimination, and increased surveillance of queer communities. This rising tide of violence and legislative oppression starkly contradicts the ideals of liberty and justice, yet the nation still asks us to celebrate a country that continues to deem some lives less worthy of protection.
And if America isn’t actively imposing harmful policies on millions of non-white and non-straight people, it’s creating conditions that make the pursuit of a decent quality of life nearly impossible. One of the most glaring examples of this failure is the growing crisis of food insecurity, which disproportionately affects Black, Brown, Indigenous, and low-income communities—further exposing the deep inequalities that persist across the nation.
Over 47 million people in the U.S. struggle to access enough food—including nearly 14 million children. This is not due to a lack of resources but to systems that prioritize corporate profit over human need. Agricultural workers, many of whom are immigrants and people of color, endure grueling conditions for poverty wages while families across the country line up at food pantries. The myth of the American Dream continues to be used as a distraction from the economic realities that so many people face every day. 
The “Big Beautiful Bill,” a sweeping domestic policy proposal, threatens to exacerbate this crisis by slashing up to $300 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the largest food assistance program in the U.S. This would be the most significant cut in SNAP’s 61-year history and could lead to mass disenrollment, particularly in rural and Republican-leaning states that heavily rely on these programs. The bill also shifts up to 25% of SNAP funding responsibilities from the federal government to individual states, potentially straining local budgets and increasing hunger. 
In Texas, for instance, approximately 5.1 million people—16.9% of the state’s population—are food insecure. The Central Texas Food Bank, which supports over 530,000 food-insecure residents across 21 counties, is facing a $5.5 million funding loss due to recent federal cuts, including the elimination of over $1 billion in local food purchasing funds and the discontinuation of the $500 million Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program.
Nationally, food insecurity increased by 6% in 2023, marking the second straight year of rising hunger. This uptick is compounded by rising food costs and proposed cuts to federal nutrition programs, which could further strain families already struggling to make ends meet. 
The “Big Beautiful Bill” not only threatens to deepen food insecurity but also reflects a broader pattern of policies that prioritize corporate interests over the well-being of vulnerable communities. As the nation celebrates its independence, it’s crucial to recognize that true freedom includes the right to access sufficient, nutritious food—a right currently denied to millions.
There is also the constant attack on voting rights and civic participation, particularly targeting Black, Brown, and poor communities. Gerrymandering, voter ID laws, and purging of voter rolls are modern tools of disenfranchisement. These tactics are not new—they are extensions of a long history of suppressing the political power of marginalized people. While the nation touts democracy as one of its greatest values, it continues to undermine it for those most in need of representation and change.
Looking at the parallels between America’s past and present, the myth of progress becomes harder to sustain. Enslavement has become mass incarceration. Native removal has become environmental racism. Immigrant labor built the country, and immigrant labor still fuels it—while being relentlessly criminalized. LGBTQ+ people fought for visibility and rights, only to see those rights rolled back. The language has changed, but the power dynamics remain disturbingly familiar.
To celebrate America’s independence without acknowledging its ongoing injustices is to ignore the reality lived by millions. Fireworks and flags cannot erase the harm done—or the harm still happening. True patriotism would demand a reckoning, a deep examination of the systems we uphold and the people we exclude. Instead, we are often told to be silent, to fall in line, to wave a flag that has never fully represented us.
Freedom cannot exist while millions are caged, excluded, erased, and silenced. Until that changes, America doesn’t deserve to celebrate independence. It must first earn it.
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