Happy Independence Day(?) - Thoughts for Chang

Happy 4th of July!

As I was making my rounds of sending mass text messages to friends to wish them a “Happy Independence Day,” a friend replied back with a “For some.” It hit me hard. It was 8:20AM. 

Her respond really got me thinking so I want to share a few words. She’s is absolutely right. We're not free until we are ALL free. There are many people who do not have the same freedoms with differing access to privilege. Can we truly call ourselves the Land of the Free when there are still so many injustices in our society? ​

Our mass incarceration system that unjustly targets POC and poor communities? 

A government that puts children in cages? 

Places people in concentration camps under squalid conditions? 

The disrespect of women's rights and their bodies? 
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The list goes on. 

Our society still has a long way to go before we are all truly free. 

This is the truth and the truth hurts.

There's plenty more injustices out there and we must keep up the fight. As I always tell my students, democracy is like a car. It needs routine maintenance to keep running or else it'd break down. In this case, we pave the way for tyranny. 

Just as MLK once said:
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
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Here are a few book recommendations if you want to read up:

• The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
• White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
• Tell Me Who You Are: Sharing Our Stories of Race, Culture, & Identity by Winona Guo & Priya Vulchi
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehesi Coates
• Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas
• Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Davis
• The Making of Asian America by Erika Lee
• The Revolution: It's Time to Empower Change in Our Schools by Darren Ellwein & Derek L. McCoy