Voices: It’s 4 July – but the US has nothing to celebrate this Independence Day

It’s 4 July, but the USA has a lot more to be ashamed of than to celebrate.

Rather than parades, hot dogs and fireworks, let’s take the past few weeks alone as a snapshot of what the “land of the free” really symbolises in 2022: turmoil over abortion, civil rights, gun control and insurrection.

Does the US deserve a birthday party? Not from where I’m standing from across the pond (and don’t get me wrong: Britain wouldn’t warrant streamers and confetti either, not after the likes of Partygate, Tory sleaze, Brexit and the shocking, inhumane treatment of refugees) – but if you were to ask me what immediately springs to mind when I think of the US at the moment, it’s the heinous overturning of Roe v Wade and the continued oppression of women.

Just last night, I was transfixed with horror while watching the hashtag #shes10 trend on Twitter, as people reacted to news that a 10-year-old rape victim was forced to travel to a neighbouring state after being denied an abortion in Ohio. As I tucked my own 10-year-old daughter into bed in London, I thanked our lucky stars that neither she, nor I, was born in the US.

What do parents like me tell children about the country on 4 July? I find it hard to imagine anyone can possibly speak from a place of pride – you can’t teach your kids to be tolerant when they’re seeing women stripped of their bodily autonomy before their very eyes, when little girls the same age as them are being reduced to nothing more than living wombs.

The parents who are fighting this grevious loss of rights; who are protesting in the streets against guns and for abortion rights – and are even being arrested for it – are the only ones setting a good example for their kids. I can’t imagine they’re celebrating Independence Day. It strikes me that there’s not much to be proud of.

Because you can’t give thanks for so-called “independence” and “modernism” in a world which is anything but; where entire communities are in danger of being suffocated by the slow squeeze of conservativism. You can’t dress up oppression and blame the consititution. You can only sit back and watch in horror.

And that’s exactly what is happening: the world is shaking its head at what’s happening in the US today – at what’s happening to the so-called “land of the free”, which is anything but. Why would we pay tribute to independence when America is shackled?

We know – because it’s glaringly obvious – that the LGBT+ community is very likely next on the US’s right-wing hit list, with Justice Clarence Thomas, who sits on the Supreme Court, already suggesting that overturning Roe v Wade could upend other 14th Amendment protections for other civil rights – including landmark cases involving same-sex marriages, gay sex, and contraception. We’ve already seen attempts in Texas to label medical care for transgender youth as “child abuse”.

We can cast our minds back just a few weeks to other atrocities – such as the horrific school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in which 19 young children and two children died. Before that was the Buffalo shooting, in which 10 Black people were murdered. The shooting suspect, 18-year-old Payton Gendron, left a chilling handwritten note for his family saying massacre was “for the future of the white race”.

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It’s July. Only halfway through the year and already there have been 250 mass shootings in the United States in 2022. That means, at the time of writing, there hasn’t been a single week this year without a mass shooting (defined by an incident in which four or more people are injured or killed). Yet just this week, the Supreme Court struck down a New York law that limits those who can carry concealed weapons. Say what?

Then there’s the January 6 insurrection and the subsequent hearings in court – which has the world gripped in grim fascination; with former US president Donald Trump accused of actively luring thousands of his supporters to the US Capitol – not to mention the fact that the world is standing on the brink of global recession.

Those of us on the outside aren’t the only ones ashamed of what the US has become – as Bette Midler (and it’s hard to find a greater national treasure than she) tweeted: “4th of July has been cancelled due to a shortage of Independence. Sincerely, Women.”

She even has this in her Twitter bio: “We love our guns more than we love our children.” Not much 4 July pride there, is there?

“I think many of us are feeling conflicted about celebrating 4th of July right now,” obstacle race champion and attorney Amelia Boone tweeted as the week gave way to the long holiday weekend.

Too right. Happy 246th birthday, America. Don’t mind us if we don’t get you a cake.