This is Kenn Dowell. Cleveland born. Glenville raised. And never afraid to say what needs to be said.
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I Gave Up On Fireworks A Long Time Ago.
When my kids were small, we made a whole day of it. Cook all day. Clean the house. Get everybody dressed and fed and ready to sit outside for two hours. Then drive clear across town, fight for parking, and wait on twenty minutes of sky. After that, you drive home in traffic that doesn’t move, and you still gotta clean the kitchen before bed because you got work in the morning.
Somewhere along the way, that got old. My wife still wants to go every year. This year, our usual spot didn’t even have fireworks. I wasn’t about to drive across town for somebody else’s show. So we stayed home.
Being who I am, I got on YouTube instead. I wanted to see what America did for its two hundred and fiftieth birthday. Missed it live, watched it the next day. What I saw stuck with me more than any fireworks show ever could.
The Reveal
DC lit the sky for almost an hour straight. Big show, right outside the White House, and from what I saw, the president slept through most of it.
Then the entertainment came on. At first, I thought it was a military band. I was wrong. It was a cover band. A wedding band, basically, sings the songs America likes to wave around as they belong to everybody.
Here’s the thing. They got all the way down to Prince. They got all the way down to Earth, Wind, and Fire. Sang those songs note for note in front of a crowd that didn’t have one of us anywhere in it. Not on stage. Not in the seats. Not sweeping the floor.
Two hundred fifty years, and the party still didn’t want our contribution. Just our songs.
Now Picture This
I started thinking about what that day would’ve looked like under different leadership. Say Kamala Harris had won. Say it was still Barack Obama’s America. Say Joe Biden got four more years.
A two hundred fifty years’ birthday party with no new wars started on our watch. Without ICE agents pulling people off the street in our neighborhoods. Without DEI programs getting ripped out from under working people who earned those seats.
Can you really imagine what that day would’ve felt like? Not just who’s on stage. What it feels like to actually be counted in your own country’s birthday.
This Isn’t Just A Feeling. It’s Policy.
That same week, this administration was in court deciding who actually gets to be American. They pulled the Temporary Protected Status for Haitian immigrants. Congresswoman Shontel Brown broke down exactly why that matters when she joined Dr. Heather Burton and me on the show:
“You can’t look at a Haitian and tell they’re Haitian or a Black American and tell that they’re not Haitian. This is a dangerous precedent that they are setting for all Black people.”
The Supreme Court also ruled 6-3 to keep birthright citizenship in place. Six justices got it right. Three didn’t want to. Brown wasn’t about to let anybody celebrate that split like a victory:
“It’s like celebrating that your refrigerator keeps your food cold. That’s what it’s supposed to do.”
Here’s What This Really Means
A cover band on a stage is a symbol. Who gets to be an American citizen is not. Both are answering the same question: who does this country actually count, and who just gets to watch?
The cover band shows you how this country sees us when the cameras are on and nobody’s checking anything. The court cases show you what happens when the cameras are off. Pay attention to both. They’re telling you the same story from two different rooms.
Dr. Burton, Congresswoman Brown got into all of it this week — the TPS fight, the birthright citizenship ruling, and what a year under the “big ugly law” has actually cost Ohio families. Listen to the full conversation here →
This is exactly the kind of breakdown you get every week when you’re on this list — the strategy behind the story, not just the story. If you’re not subscribed yet, fix that now. → kenndowell.substack.com
My question for you: If Kamala Harris had won, do you think you would’ve felt like you were part of America’s 250th birthday? Or would it have taken more than just who’s in the White House?