The Fourth of July is the birthday of the United States and the day as a country we grew up and parted ways with our mother, Great Britain. Audre Lorde delves into the abyss of independence of not the country but of the human race controlled for the past four hundred years. In the passage “The Fourth of July”, Lorde utilizes her tone and opinions on racism in a narrative by a graduating middle school student. Lorde uses the narrator as her persona to establish her values and give the essay an active voice. Additionally, by incorporating colors that Audre Lorde so lavishly depicts adds a dimension to the two distinct colors of white and black. All the injustices that the narrator’s family endures, her parents ignore them as if they never happened. While outraging Audre, we see the effects of silent complicity on blacks and on Audre Lorde. The symbolism of brightness, sunlight, and sunglasses permeate throughout the essay, establishing another color symbolism. Audre Lorde uses the birthplace of the United States as her setting to illustrate the deeper meaning of freedom.
Audre Lorde disguises her theme of racism deep into a story of a girl who just graduated from middle school. Her family set out to Washington D.C., home to monuments of war, deceased presidents, and democracy. At first, the narrator is awed and excited that she is going to Washington D.C. The narrator, however, journeys through a rite of passage in which we see her grow up from a teenager to a young adult ready to understand the complicated world of racism in America.
In the first sentence of the passage, Lorde describes the time as the “…edge of summer when I was supposed to stop being a child” (567). What is “stop being a child”? Is it when the child transcends that journey to high school as it is in the story or a broader meaning to adults? When will adults mature to a point in which racism and ignorance become the past? These are the questions Audre Lorde poses deep into her passage. The phrase “stop being” appears again stressing the universality of human weakness; we will never stop being judgmental to foreigners. Lorde additionally uses Washington D.C. to represent the divided America. Washington D.C., which has so much history, commemorates the Civil War and President Lincoln’s fight for equality amongst all Americans. Furthermore, July Fourth is “Independence Day” for Americans. But who really was freed from the wrath of Great Britain? The answer is whites; it took one hundred more years until blacks were “freed” and approximately another one hundred fifty years later and blacks are still not socially equal. It is also important to note that the first impression of the narrator towards Washington D.C. is like she was mesmerized. Lorde describes the city using alliteration as “…the fabled and famous capital of our country.” (567). We will see at the end, the narrator’s attitude toward D.C. has changed dramatically.
Instantly Audre tells us that the family is poor and must ride at night on the milk train. Here we see Audre’s first example of the disparity between black and white. White milk, night train, and cheap, by reevaluating we can understand Lorde meaning of blacks still bonded in a slave-like manner. The family must ride the night train because whites manipulate money in order to influence blacks; they cannot afford anything else. The author moves us through the train ride with colorful descriptions of different foods. “She packed slices of brown bread and butter and green pepper and carrots. There were little violently yellowed ice cakes with scalloped edges called “marigolds,” that came from Cushman’s Bakery.” (567) Notice the words violently yellowed and the reappearance of “edges”. Lorde uses her diction carefully to denote violence and different colors. The alliteration of brown bread and butter signifies whites and blacks are in economic sense complimentary goods. They need each other to make a whole; they belong together like peanut butter and jelly. The misleading words “preparations in the air” gives the tone of the essay an energetic sense, yet, as we read further on the reality sets in that everything is a false hope. The word choice of dainty and mobile feast triggers images to reel the reader into story.
The importance of Philadelphia is understood more than Washington. The city of brotherly love and home of the Liberty Bowl is a more ideal place for equality than the capital of the country, Washington. William Penn, founder of the state of Pennsylvania, reminds us of a short period of equality in the fledging Americas. Penn’s radical thinking shunned him from England, but he became a symbol of respect. Instead of forcing Native Americans westward, he bought their land. Pennsylvania was the first the state to allow people of all religions. Pennsylvania symbolizes Lorde’s perspective of a progressive state.
An interesting comparison is made on page 568 between ice tea and mayonnaise jar. Ice tea is the color brown while mayo is white. Lorde is utilizing color to further her theme of racism. The iced tea inside the mayo jar represents blacks locked in the grasp of whites. The actions of the blacks are confined within a space with no freedom unless this jar is to be broken. Lorde uses rosewater and glycerin as examples of universal truths. Rosewater portrays nature and its beauty and perfection; on the other hand, glycerin is man made with side effects if consumed. As a result, we conclude that the natural way of life is perfect, but the influence of humans disrupts nature and causes long term consequences. Relating again to economics, in the end the natural flow of life will find the true equilibrium.
The sister of Audre, Phyllis, is told by nuns that she will not be welcome to her high school senior trip because she is a “negro”. The underlying fact here is even religion is discriminating against blacks. The one place, time that everyone is equal is in the eyes of God, yet God’s servants are hypocritical to not allow a negro girl to accompany her classmates to Washington D.C. because Phyllis “would not be happy at the hotel.” The response of the parents infuriated Audre Lorde. Silent complicity is the act of as if nothing ever happened. How could Phyllis’s parents do that, living in silence? Audre Lorde is trying to persuade to us that silent complicity will not help, the only way to further the human rights of blacks is action. “As usual, whatever my mother did not like and could not change, she ignored. Perhaps it would go way, deprived of her attention.” (568) Lorde makes a strong point that the mother represents a stereotypical black by succumbing to ignorance. Her lack of confidence to deal with racism head on infuriates Lorde, who through the narrator voices her opinion of pro-action. The brilliancy of Lorde continues by comparing the father and mother. The mother is bright, and father is brown. Uncharacteristically, the “brown” father is the one who thinks progressively. The exact opposite is perceived by the world; whites are adopting new ideas and progressing and blacks decaying under ignorance. The daughters, furthermore, are in between the mother and father, indicating they are in the middle between white and black or grey areas.
Why did Audre Lorde choose the name Phyllis? In Greek mythology, Phyllis is the daughter of the King of Thrace who she marries the son of Theseus, Demophoon. However, when Demophoon leaves to help his father in the Trojan War, Phyllis’s sorrow leads her to commit suicide by hanging herself from a tree. The name of Phyllis alludes to the action of lynching of blacks in the early twentieth century.
The tone of “The Fourth of July” is innocent at the beginning but slowly morphs into outrage and anger. The tone is also informal, especially at times when Lorde inserts teenage vocabulary such as “umpteenth time” to connect with the young audience. “Mother never mentioned that black people were not allowed into railroad dining cars headed south in 1947.” (568) I can hear the boom of Audre Lorde’s hammer striking the tone and innocence of the story out with a tense anger driven narrator craving to find out why everyone ignores the constant discrimination they face. “My mother and father believed that they could best protect their children from the realities of race in America and the fact of American racism by never giving them name, mush less discussing their nature.” (568) The child does not understand why her parents are so passive in their views of combating discrimination. As a result, when we see the child narrator start to mature and understand the realities of American society, she takes an active sign of combating racism by writing to the President, while the father silently dissuades her from that notion.
We already know the narrator is on the opposite side of the spectrum, but Lorde solidifies that position at the hotel. “In Washington D.C., we had one large room with two double beds and an extra cot for me.” I understand now; Lorde has purposefully distance the narrator from the rest of the family. The incidence at Breyer’s ice cream and soda fountain demonstrates the difference. Everyone in her family, sisters and parents, are silent about what happened to them, thinking they should have anticipated the outcome. The determined narrator, on the contrary writes a letter to the president in her diary.
Brightness, sunlight, the whiteness of the buildings and pavements all procure disgustful images into the narrator’s mind. The “dazzling whiteness” results the narrator to constantly squint, eventually her eyes become dilated and vulnerable. She becomes vulnerable to the white perspective; it surrounds her and follows her. It is omnipotent. When she wants to wear sunglasses the dark perspective, her parents naively shoot the idea down. The whiteness encompassing everything from the government monuments to public land symbolizes white’s supremacy.
The sentence structure and organization are simple to keep the story flowing. Lorde does not use complicated vocabulary words because she found it more persuading to use the diction of a middle school student to capture the essence of racism in America. Action not silent complicity is what Audre Lorde praises. By the end of the passage, we see the author’s emotions erupt into leading the protagonist to write to the president.
In a world with inequality and injustice, the words of Audre Lorde speak to her readers. Was it not until Martin Luther King Jr., and his companions took a stand that they were finally given the unalienable rights that are mention in the constitution? By incorporating vivid images of color and the disgust of silent complicity, Audre Lorde’s purpose is to relay nothing good will ever be with silent complicity. The emphasis of white and black, two colors on the opposite color spectrum, by Audre Lorde makes the reader realize that there are grey areas in which we can all exist. People are treated unfairly everyday in the world. Audre Lorde asks them, literally begs them to hearken and be proactive in shaping this world into equality for all.
Works Cited
Lorde, Audre. “The Fourth of July.” Language Awareness: Readings for College Writers. Ed. Paul Eschholz et al. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005. 567-570.
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