Leaving the country didn’t liberate me the way it has for some of y’all.
Several days ago, Amina posted on Threads: “do you dream of liberation or power?” That question was so simple but it prompted me to put all of my philosophies into perspective this Black history month. Here’s what I know for sure about myself: I dream of freedom and liberation.
Here’s what I know for sure about everyone: We are all born free.
Here’s a theory of development I’m processing: As babies learn mobility - scooting and then crawling and then walking - we either keep a lot of freedom or immediately have it taken away.
The freedom we keep from toddlerhood through the teen years depends on the freedom of our parents and teachers. Were their schedules free? Was their money free?
Capability in children becomes power in adults. What I can do, I will do in order to gain what I want. We start trading capability and power for the type of freedom I’ll call liberation. We earn our liberation with our capability and power.
Liberty is for those whose freedom has been taken.
Society asks those we have trapped to liberate themselves.
The only proven method of liberation is gaining power over something, usually money. And often gaining power over money, means gaining power over other people. Capitalism.
Back to what I know for sure: The majority of my pain has come from striving for power. I think there was always a tiny part of me that felt like power was not the goal, but I needed power to gain autonomy. And then with my autonomy, I hoped to create my own liberation and that of others in my sphere.
It’s like I been in a power struggle with myself because I resent needing to earn liberty. I resent it even more in the areas where others have retained freedom and I have been trapped. My soul remembers being a free child.
Months ago, a tweet went viral of @MrGee54 saying: “Black excellence is dope but Black regular-ness is good too. We aint gotta be magical and magnificent all day everyday.”
We glorify excellence because we live in a system that believes in earning our liberty.
What we forget is that freedom can end in excellence also.
Excellence can be a result of the freedom to pursue something to the highest degree.
I was free to read as a young person and that freedom made me want to try to write my own stories. I was free to play with my Barbies, and imagined them with the most loving and brilliant social lives and families.
On the first day of February, I saw a poet’s video on Instagram. She was speaking an impactful ode to our heritage and ancestry. The part that most resonated with me was when she lauded being “Black when it’s wrong and Black when it’s right.” (Theresa tha Songbird). To the point of freedom, I realized that one of my biggest complaints about society is how those who aren’t seen as Black are allowed to be full, rounded, and make mistakes. They are free like children.
It seems like when Black people make mistakes, or are simply not excellent and perfect, we are held accountable in a way that others are not. Like Kerry Washington and Joseph Thomas Morton Jr. in Scandal shouting about having to be twice as good to get half as much. It’s been our reality but I hate it. And I’ve been twice as good in many circumstances throughout life. I’ve been actively rebelling against that inclination since 2022. I know that I’m not very interested in overpowering and I’m only tryna empower people to hold onto their freedoms and work for their liberation.
.As I continue becoming my own innerG, it involves being free to make mistakes in love and in work, being free to be regular and not excellent. I want to be liberated from the judgments of those who are miserable and liberated from the need to do anything more than I want to. I don’t know if the freedom ship has sailed, but maybe I can still liberate myself? Or be liberated? I came back to the so-called “land of liberty” to figure it out. It was too hard for me to bask in Black freedom in a place where there were so few Black people.
Comments