October 8, 2024: Contested Holidays: The 4th of July

[Ahead of Columbus/Indigenous Peoples’ Day, I wanted to dedicate a series to exploring such contested American holidays and what they can help us think about. Leading up to a special post on that most conflicted of all our federal holidays!]

On whether and how there’s a place for celebratory patriotism in our national commemorations.

For many years I’ve made the case that all Americans should read, hear, or at least engage with Frederick Douglass’s “What to the Slave is the 4^th of July?” on that holiday. I did so earlier this year in this post, so will ask you to check that one out and then come on back here for a couple other ways to think about this contested holiday.

Welcome back! Having written multiple books centered on the concept of critical patriotism, I both believe Douglass’s speech embodies it as well as any American text ever has and would argue that such patriotism has to occupy a key place at our July 4^th commemorations. For far too many Americans, past and present, the ideals celebrated on such occasions have never been fully realized, or even extended to them at all, and any commemoration that doesn’t acknowledge and grapple with those realities is ultimately a hollow one. But at the same time, as a Dad whose sons have long loved the annual 4^th of July fireworks in their hometown (a tradition about as old as the holiday itself), I would never argue that we should do away with such communal celebrations entirely, nor that after every dazzling display of lights we have to stop the show to have an analytical conversation about hard histories. If I ever become that much of an academic, please feel free to slap me with a hot dog.

Moreover, I’d say that there’s a meaningful way that celebratory and critical patriotisms can and should be intertwined on occasions like this. As I trace throughout my patriotism book, too often celebratory patriotism becomes so uncritical that it turns into mythic patriotism, the type that simplistically and fully idealizes the nation and sees anyone who disagrees as unpatriotic and even un-American. But just as I refuse to cede patriotism overall to that particular vision, I likewise refuse to see that as the only outcome for celebratory patriotism specifically. There’s no reason why we couldn’t listen to some of Douglass’s speech at a 4^th of July commemoration, consider both our foundational ideals, the ways we’ve fallen short of them, and the continued collective goal of moving closer to them, and then watch a kickass fireworks show to drive home every bit of that. Indeed, I think such a multi-layered commemoration would have a far better chance of including all Americans than do the simplistic and too often overtly exclusionary versions of the holiday. Let’s celebrate our independence from those limited and limiting legacies!

Next HolidayStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think?