It is impossible to celebrate Independence Day with children in cages. Children taken from their parents and shipped across the country and given to strangers. Children who traveled alone to what their parents believed would be safety held in jail rather than released to relatives or community members.
It is impossible to celebrate, to turn a blind eye to the barbarism and brutality of what we are doing. Even for one day. For one afternoon. What we are doing is horrific and unforgivable. We have permanently harmed tens of thousands of children out of sheer love of cruelty.
They say that when you love someone far away, it’s a comfort to look at the sky and see the same stars and moon that shine on us all. When I see the American flag, I see the same flag that flies high above all of these camps and prisons. There is no honor in that, nothing to respect. That we have done to ourselves.