Welcome to a bonus blog for the Mukuyu Accountability is Love series!
This series explores accountability at its intersection with power, people, and the planet. Unpacking the personal, professional, political power we have or had to hold systems accountable the the values, statements, and declarations.
This bonus blog comes to you on what I now call, Interdependence Day, also known as Independence Day. Since we know that in nature, you are never alone, we know that independence is an illusion necessary to allow for unfettered capitalism. Alas, as we begin to commemorate this US federal holiday, let us explore who gets power and how that power is used.
Whether it is the power to make the decision or the power to take it away, let us be reminded of the ruling minority and their oversized power over the people of the global majority as well as our non-human kin. Let us also be reminded of the invitation to co-create new/renewed governance structures that honor all living beings on Earth.
“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
― Arundhati Roy, War Talk
40 Acres and a Mule on Stolen Land
As an African American woman still waiting on 40 acres and a mule on stolen land, this In(ter)dependence Day celebration hits different based on my lived and learned experiences. This year, two things come to my mind. The first is Fredrick Douglass, “What to a Slave is the Fourth of July?” speech and the second is the Great Law of Peace – a democratic system created by the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy).
This couplet helps me to untangle the conflicted actions that allowed those select freedoms for some on the backs of many. This holiday reminds me too of the debt still owed to those in the margins as well as those who continue to be sacrificed for the American Dream to exist. During a time when the current US President just alluded to the enslavement of select immigrants at the newly built concentration camp in Florida by alluding that US farmers would be responsible for the (select) immigrant laborers, who would not receive citizenship. A time when our gerrymandered, majority immigrant US Congressmembers try and pass the One Big Beautiful Bill that seeks to extract more from the many for the benefit of a few.
Notice I keep adding ‘select’ in front of immigrants because it is critical to remember that EVERYONE who was NOT born on Turtle Island – the Americas – ARE IMMIGRANTS!! I prefer ‘arrivant’ as a descendent of enslaved Africans but ultimately, we too are not Indigenous to this country regardless of how long we have been living here.
This Fourth July is Yours, Not Mine
Let’s unpack Douglass’ speech and how it continues to speak to this moment in our nation’s history.
This drawing of a slave auction in Virginia in 1861 illustrates one of the most brutal forms of torture that enslaved people faced—family separation while being bought and sold as property. Credit: Illustrated London Newsd
“Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.”
We are not equals in the United States of America. We still have a hierarchy of rights that are aligned not with your humanity but with your identities whether race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, immigration status, disability/ability status, rights have rarely been allocated to the people of the global majority. From the invention of coinage in the 800 BCE to the great capitalist empires of the 1400s and beyond, the prevalence of a small ruling minority over the majority has plagued almost every corner of planet Earth.
The marginalized have yet to inherit the richness of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence. Just yesterday, the University of Colorado Board of Regents centured the only Black Regent – Regent Wanda James – on the Board for calling out anti-Black racist imagery that was allowed to be shared publicly. Justice is rarely extended and often blocked by order and the chronic lack of representation in decision making.
The other thing that strikes me about this section of the speech is what it took for the ‘American Dream’ to exist. Here Douglass comments on the “sunlight that bright light and healing” to White landowning man was possible only through the ‘stripes and death’ to me. Thus the 40 acres and mule reference earlier recalling the promise made to my formerly enslaved African Americans after the Civil War to provide them with land and resources for economic self-sufficiency.
Many do not know that some of these (stolen) lands were actually given/awarded to formerly enslaved Africans but taken back after President Andrew Johnson rescinded the policy following Lincoln’s assassination. President Johnson, a segregationist, chose to return 400,000 acres of land to its previous Confederate owners. Yet another example of why the last phrase from Douglass’ “This Fourth July is yours, not mine” still rings true. As a resident of Boulder, Colorado – a town founded in 1859 – this also reminds of the deep interconnectedness between the south and the western regions of the US.
The Origins of Democracy on Turtle Island
On the banks of the Grand River, Cayuga Faithkeeper and Sub-chief, Leroy (Jock) Hill, holds a glass and twine replica of the Hiawatha Belt. Wampum Belts are an integral part of Haudenosaunee culture, holding laws, treaties and values within their beads. (Photo: Colin Boyd Shafer)
Many believe that democratic practices came from Europe to Turtle Island – always referred to as the Americas. The irony is the entire premise of America required some of the most undemocratic behavior and decisions grounded in settler colonialism – system of oppression that required genocide of the Indigenous inhabitants, displacement, dispossession, and discrimination by the majority on inhabitants to be replaced by a new population of settlers who immigrated from other countries.
This Interdependence Day as the People of the Global Majority have begun to call it, let us remember the origins of the US Constitutions which was to frame the US democracy that we live today – the Great Law of Peace. The Great Law of Peace was developed over 1,000 years ago by the Haudenosaunee (People of the Longhouse) which included the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora (who joined later). Chiefs of these nations agreed on relational responsibility that centered the following values according the Sacred Relatives:
- Consensus-based Decision Making
- Checks and Balances
- Indigenous Clan Mother Leadership
- Individual Rights and Responsibilities
- Separation of Power
According to the Oneida, in 1784, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were significantly impacted by the discipline and organized governance practices of the Iroquois confederacy and use some (not all) of the principles to inform the US Constitution. Sacred Relatives contends that Franklin witnessed council meetings and recorded political structures and frameworks including checks and balances, individual rights and responsibilities, and separation of powers.
However, there are several critical areas that Franklin and the US constitution framers omitted. These areas include the (1) the role and importance of women’s leadership, (2) consensus (note: the US president is still not won by a majority of votes but rather the result of the Electoral College made up of a small unrepresentative minority, and (3) ecological and spiritual disconnection as rights only extend to select humans leaving out rights for water, soil, air as well as the spiritual realm.
These omissions are glaring as our nation faces an unprecedented efforts to dismantle the little bits of democracy that have been grown since representation expanded over generations of effort by those in the majority.
So What Will We Celebrate?
Today and everyday, I celebrate plant, people, and possibilities. Today, I celebrate community cultural wealth that stabilizes and holds us when systems of oppression held by a small ruling class fails us. Today, I remember the power and resilience of our ancestors who navigated systems of oppression and even transformed them.
Today, I remember that democracy is a muscle that must be flexed and strengthened.
Today, I dream bigger dreams manifesting not only the great laws but also the collective will. The will to share power and to be led by Earth-based knowledge, not market-based knowledge.
The time is now to reimagine our government and democracy at the same time that we are dismantling systems of oppression. We cannot collectively create what we cannot imagine or dream. Our thoughts and actions manifest our reality.
The time is now to move away from a United States that requires haves and have nots based on exploitive and overconsumptive systems.
The time is now to create and reclaim relational systems rooted in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all living beings.
Evolve or die.
Call to Align and Activate
- Read, share, reflect, and discussion the Douglass speech and the Great Law of Peace. How do these principles and reflections on America align with your personal and professional lived and learned experiences? Where are there opportunities to align thought, actions, and deeds in service of the Great Law of Peace?
- Support Black and Indigenous Led People and Organizations via land back, reparations, reconciliation, donations, volunteerism, low barrier grant opportunities, and participation in offerings:
Summit for Action – Founded and led by Parker McMullen Bushman, Summit for Action is committed to social and environmental justice. Join us on October 2-3, 2025, 2025 for their annual convening this year titled, “Roots of Resistance: Breaking Chains, Building Justice.” Learn more and register here. Parker also leads EcoInclusive which offers a suite of professional development opportunities via their patreon. Check out workshops here.
Harvest of All First Nations (HAFN) is focused on Indigenous-led reparations, rematriation, and Earth-based decolonization for the benefit of BIPOC+ communities for cultural education and health equity. HAFN is a grassroots community-led, community driven organization guided by the council of leaders creating change for people of the global majority and disinvested communities in the Boulder/Denver/ Front Range areas, and beyond. To learn more and connect, please click here. - Elect Values Aligned People to Positions of Power – we will never have a democracy if we continue to allow a ruling minority to reign. Research all the open seats up for election at the city, county, state, and federal levels. This also includes government hosted boards and communities which also operate at each level.It is critical to note that elected officials ranging from the President to Governor to State/County/City representatives determine the selection of who gets to serve on government hosted boards and commissions that inform policy and resource allocations. Decision areas range from education, housing, wildlife, workforce, transportation, natural resource management/allocations, and ever other facet of human and non-human life on Earth.Wanna learn more about the Environmental Regulatory Institute led by the Next 100 Coalition. This institute includes a dynamic national peer-mentor network, training program, and engagement with relevant boards and commissions making decisions about water, land, air, and people. Click here to learn more.
Nourishing Inspiration
“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.
The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.
Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them.
Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
― Arundhati Roy, War Talk
