Liberation in Celebration of the 4th of July

(from guest blogger Vegina – musings from a feminist vegan rabble rouser…)

The 4^th of July is here! Today is the day when we come together to commemorate our liberation from oppression. We celebrate by hanging out with the people we love, eating a lot of food and watching the sky explode with fireworks. But while we celebrate there are billions in this country who are not free.

Many are imprisoned physically and often unjustly. The prison industrial complex is big business and it is a growing business that leaves countless victims trapped without their freedom.

Since 1991 the rate of violent crime in the United States has fallen by about 20 percent, while the number of people in prison or jail has risen by 50 percent…[This increase is largely] because of imprisonment of people who have committed nonviolent offenses. Instead of community service, fines, or drug treatment [nonviolent offenders are sentenced] to a prison term, by far the most expensive form of punishment.

Adapted from Eric Schlosser

Others are imprisoned by a sense of fear because our society is sexist and homophobic; in 2008 the FBI recorded over 1,600 hate crimes against people based on their sexual orientation (likely a gross underestimate) and transgender individuals are so discriminated against that the Southern Poverty Law Center suspects that they have highest rates of being murdered compared with other hate crime targets.

Still others are imprisoned by an unjust social system that perpetuates discrimination based on race, ethnicity and national origin and that allows for our citizens to live in poverty and without access to adequate education, health care or housing. There are grave wage, income, health and educational disparities based on race, ethnicity and gender with those who are white and male faring better than their non-white and female counterparts, respectively. And in one of the richest countries in the world about 3.5 million people will be homeless in an average year and 13% of our countries population lives in poverty (the rate is over 30% for black and Hispanics).

The lack of freedom does not stop with our human compatriots. Among the most oppressed, the most tortured, the most imprisoned and most disenfranchised of our society are non-human animals. As a society we exploit their labor, abuse their bodies, steal their children and murder them for vanity. Animals that have every right to live lives free of pain and full of love are being caged by the billions. Mothers have their right to love, nourish and nurture their offspring taken from them so that we can have dairy and eggs. Pet animals, that were originally bred by humans to live symbiotically with us have been slighted; in exchange for their love and companionship we are supposed to provide them food, shelter and to return love but companion animals are being euthanized to the rate of 3-4 million per year because we haven’t held up our end of the bargain by spaying, neutering and housing them.

The most grotesque thing we do as a society is to consume animals as food by the billions. In the single second it takes you to read this sentence 363 land and marine animals were killed in the United States.

We have allowed our freedom to make us gluttonous and selfish and it is coming at a great expense within our borders as well as on a global and environmental level. As Americans bask in our freedom we forget the impact we have on the rest of the world so that our freedom ends up coming at an extreme cost to others. As a nation we have the privilege to determine world markets and our desire for an excessive amount of inexpensive goods has led to the proliferation of human rights abuses around the world, including unfair and inhumane labor practices, smuggling, human trafficking and market manipulation (think blood diamonds). We also perpetuate animal and environmental atrocities around the world such as clear-cutting of forests, “over fishing” of seas, the imprisonment and torture of animals for skins (leather and fur), “exotic animal” hunts and trading, kidnapping animals for use in the entertainment industry and the list goes on.

Today I will celebrate my privilege and my relative position of freedom, but I will do this with the understanding that none of us is truly free until we eradicate oppression from our lives. In the movie Bold Native, Charlie Cranehill reminds us that as long as we allow others to be imprisoned we are not free.

What is freedom? Are we born free or do we earn it? And if you deny freedom to the quiet ones, those that have no voice, can you be free yourself, or are you caged by your own lack of compassion? …They say freedom isn’t free. Absolutely Goddamn right. We spend our lives saying no. Not me, not my fight, not my problem, not tonight. What’s the difference between you and me? A few years ago I became someone who said yes. Me, my fight, my problem, tonight.

One of my favorite chants at demonstrations is: “Human freedom, animal rights!” This is a necessary call to action that speaks to me with a particular clarity today. If we hope to be free we need to buckle down, pick up the pace and get to work because there is already too much to do. Today I ask you to celebrate your freedom by fighting for the freedom of others. Pick up your signs, create your art, write your books, give your speeches, raise your voice, share your knowledge and, most importantly, break every cage that you find along the way. Do what you do best to liberate the oppressed and do not stop until there truly is freedom for everyone.

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