Sparks

On Fireworks and Celebrating 4th of July

The fireworks weren’t that hard to find. We walked three blocks from the party and we were there, in the midst of a huge party, cars double parked to keep too many people from driving through, music blasting but mostly muffled from the sounds of bright explosives launching in the air. Little kids were handed small sparklers while parents and siblings taught slightly older ones how to hold and launch Roman candles. The adults at the party walked into the middle of the street, placing small cylinders on the ground, lighting them and running away, the loud burst above our heads igniting hoots and laughs and sheer awe as the sky exploded in light. 

My friend said, as we waited for the next round of mortar, “There’s a lot I’m forgetting just to enjoy this.” They laughed. 

And it is true. The loud explosions, many of them green and red, feel like an odd way, as many have said for many years, to celebrate the founding of this country. And now, with our country funding almost entirely Israel’s genocide and violent displacement, once again, of Palestinians, the rockets going off hold a different tone. 

It’s no hot take to say that this country feels like hot shit right now. Many cities are arresting non-violent and even non-confrontational Palestinian protesters. The economy is apparently doing well, unemployment is low. However, the ability to pay for college debt, medical expenses, or even afford a place to yourself or with your partner, is becoming increasingly challenging with any extra expense potentially throwing you into a spiral of debt or houselessness. Economists are legitimately delusional for wondering why everyone thinks the economy sucks right now. What’s more, very little is being done with regards to climate change. President Biden has done some things, and is oddly considered a great climate president, while approving nearly the same amount of drilling permits as Trump, and approving in April a huge offshore oil export project in Texas, none of which seems to show signs of any true action on the climate. There’s much more to fear, but I’ll leave it at that for now.

It’s not the best year, like many years, to be celebrating the United States. Getting to my friend’s house for a barbecue, I heard people joking that this was the last 4th of July. We made it to the end. It was a good run but glad we saw its end. And in some ways that feels true. It does seem like we are in the midst of some great foreboding kind of change we haven’t seen since the late sixties (the era that saw “law and order” President Nixon take office). And yet, at the same time, that fear, that anger and distrust of the government really does feel so strongly American. 

In reality, the 4th of July is much less a celebration of the country’s founding than it is a celebration of the revolt that created it. All over the country, in places where people probably shouldn’t, fireworks are lit. They disturb the peace of the night and piss off neighbors. People who light them almost want the cops to see and become completely helpless to stop it from happening, showing just how inept they can be. The celebration of the 4th of July, especially the fireworks, are not only a marker of our confused obsession and romanticization of war, guns, and bombs, but of the defiant spirit that is incredibly American. 

We are constantly in conflict with the government that is so unhelpful for working people. We protest its policies because we cannot in good conscience watch our country interfere in other nations lives, let alone fund a genocide with our taxes. We push back against much of what this country says, because it is not helping the people that truly need it the most. American culture in many ways is a culture of opposition. And so, in California where most fireworks are illegal, it only seems appropriate that some of us buy a truly astonishing amount of fireworks, and watch the night sky light up while cops pass by the side streets, unable to stop it. It's only right to do something loud, obnoxious, and illegal, despite all the dissonance, all the forgetting we feel we have to do just to enjoy this moment.