no I haven't turned traitor to my country for all that I like to speak French... I was merely referring to Frederick Douglass's blunt public decry of America in his "The Meaning of July Fourth for a Negro" speech.
Douglass has a point: If July 4th was a day of celebrating liberty, why wasn't that liberty extended to all human beings? Slavery was and is wrong: We're all created to be equal in God's eyes so what was the South's problem during the years of slavery?? I for one felt terribly ashamed when I read some of the rebuke that Douglass is throwing at the American population: "...and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shamless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival..."
Um ouch.
True, slavery is barbaric: the theory that African-Americans were subhuman is also barbaric which will be discussed in my last blog [how's that for foreshadowing, yes?]to say that a country founded on practical society as well as a "dignified, classy society" to say it is barbaric is really quite an insult but America needed to hear it and Douglass is a great speaker for his people.
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