One Thing Americans Should Do on the Fourth of July
I’m sure you’ve did not think about your neighbors in the north.
By Scaachi Koul
Jul 04, 2024 09:45 AM
I’m not on Twitter (are you really going to make me call it X?) anymore because I have shit to do, but periodically I like to check my mentions. The latest tweet I received came from a fellow Canadian (according to their user bio) irked by a recent piece I wrote about Hillary Clinton : “For a CND looking in you have some tough opinions and protected tweets … How about participating in a real democracy in the lower 50?”
Excellent idea! As an Canadian who has a permanent home within New York, I often am in the position of an outsider trying to understand what you guys are doing in this city. College? As expensive as possible. Deductible? A word and a concept that shouldn’t be used in the common language. Taxes? More than Ontario but with less services available. Are you stumbling on me? Don’t.
This year marks my 5th Fourth of July ever. I don’t participate in the celebrations–because the great thing about America is the fact that we can enjoy the right to have fun over it and even celebrate its birthday. However, I’ve developed a ritual of a sort. Every July 4 I have the same question: why didn’t anybody wishes me an enjoyable Canada Day?
It may be surprising to you to know that each calendar year Canada Day is July 1, just a couple of days prior to Independence Day. However, it is never acknowledged by all American I have met. My decision to reside here in America United States is precisely that it is a decision. However, it makes me acknowledge an indisputable reality, that is that you’re all annoying. America has a tendency to make everything more difficult louder, more raucous, and generally being a generalization, more. What is the most stinging–more then the American crime of eating cheese that comes in cans or the way you prepare meals from pasta pasta–is that you do not realize the existence of us. The Fourth of July is here, following an additional Canada Day has floated on without a shred of appreciation, I call for an apology. I want self-deflection. Do something Canadian for a moment and get yourself a slap!
The celebration of America’s Independence Day is perpetually under intense criticism. After all, it’s a day to celebrate an ununified nation, in debt and racial discrimination the pillar that supports nation-wide life. Did you not know that on the 1st of July, Canadians also have fireworks as well as cookouts, police drones as well as arguments with our conservative relatives about the dangers left-wing political leaders really are fairs on the streets and little flags to waft around, and an opportune massive apathy to what it was like to live in a country populated with Indigenous people long before we introduced smallpox to them? There’s nothing as glitzy about it like Americans are. Do you think you created the idea of being jingoistic about a holiday based on colonialism and the attempt at extermination of people who came before you? Please! We’ve been doing this from the time John Cabot ruined Newfoundland in the 1490s. This shambles history is so terrible that at the time of my 2022 graduation, my school was forced to change its name after the victims of the massacre. killed Indigenous children who were discovered buried beneath the school in the previous year It turns out that my school was named in honor of the man who helped establish the system of residential schools in Canada.
I’m not looking for anything. A little recognition to the United States doesn’t have a exclusivity in being an unsustainable society built on the sands of oppression and genocide. You could also add some ketchup-flavored chips to you Fourth of July cookout. Learn to create the Caesar (delicious) as opposed to the traditional Bloody Mary (salad juice). Something to remind me how much it is like going back to home. It’s hilarious that we share lots of things in common without trying to do anything about it.
Let me tell you this, however you have a great hot dog. I love Hot dog culture here. There’s that dog in me. I’m looking up the lyrics of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and watching those gallantly streaming ramparts. Everyone has their own price.