Back in 1968, I was 15 years old. A late bloomer. Small for my age, overlooked. Until one extraordinary year when I rocketed from 5’2” to a full 6 feet tall. It was as if the universe said: Time to grow up, kid.
There’s a world out there that needs changing. America, too, was growing up then—or trying to. Amid riots and assassinations, the country felt like it might finally stretch toward justice. Civil rights. Women’s rights. Peace protests. Black Power. Flower power. We stood up, fists raised and flowers in hand, demanding better. Demanding more.
Now, in 2025, on the 249th birthday of the country I love—but do not worship—I’m stunned to witness the ending of that arc. Like a firework that rises, blooms, and fades into nothing.
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This Fourth of July, Donald J. Trump—unfit, unwell, and unhinged—signed the Big Beautiful Bill, a name so grotesquely ironic it could only be dreamed up by a man who lives on lies and fast food. In it: over $200 billion stripped from working-class Americans to create an American gestapo, with 17 million losing medicaid, and 4 trillion added to the deficit. This wasn’t legislation. It was looting. A reverse Robin Hood scorched into law by a conman king.
He told us it was “retribution.” But make no mistake: it was revenge on compassion itself. On every gain made since 1968. On every step we’ve taken toward a fairer, saner America. And the billionaires cheer, cloaked in red, white, and delusion.
But they forget something. Something they always forget. When the poor are robbed, they do not vanish. They rise. When the system fails too many for too long, the system burns. We saw it in Watts. In Detroit. In Ferguson. In Minneapolis. And mark these words: we will see it again. This time it won’t just be Black and brown bodies out there demanding dignity. It will be seniors who’ve lost their pensions. Veterans with no healthcare. Young white families with hungry children and nowhere to go. It will be America’s reckoning—unless we stop it now. So this Fourth of July, I won’t light a sparkler or wave a flag. I will sit in meditation.
And now Elizabeth England will now lead us in a meditation we’ve to remind Americans, left and right alike, who we are and the united voice we must become.
MEDITATION FOR AN AMERICA IN DANGER OF FORGETTING
Close your eyes. Breathe in the fire of 1968—its pain, yes, but also its courage. Breathe out the fog of 2025—its cruelty, its cowardice.
Feel the presence of those who marched before us—John Lewis, MLK, Gloria Steinem, Dolores Huerta. Feel their steady hands on your shoulders.
Now ask yourself: What would I do if I had no fear? What would I do if I had no choice?
Because you don’t. Not anymore.
Either we rise together… or we fall apart.
Light your torch—not with hate, but with clarity. Shine it where they don’t want you looking. And remember: love, when awakened, is a riot no billionaire can suppress.
Let freedom ring. And let it be loud enough to scare them.
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