We are not free

We are all not free. Every single living person lives with the weight of a world they cannot control. And for the darker skinned, there is so much more weight. For women, more too. For the queer, even more.

And it goes on and gets too heavy and too dark to bear. Yet we the black, brown, female and queer people of the world do bear it. We have been bearing and it is ending, so white supremacy is fighting for its life. It has created disgusting abuses of power and it upholds the twin structures of patriarchy and racism that are killing everything.

The fact that African America has to state the value of life with violence. After everything, after centuries of bondage and genocide, sheds the lie of democracy, of freedom the west has been propagating. And because I am African I know that lie. The farce that a black face leading institutions that were constructed to subjugate means that we have achieved racial equality. I know better. I know that each and every single so called ’President’ is just a man. And where there is a man there is scam. Someone is being exploited so that man can fly around the world making decisions that perpetuate their grip on power. In America the black man represents the biggest threat to this, so he is demonized and killed or captured. That’s how it has been, that is how white power needs it to remain.

So a black child cannot be a child, he must be a warrior. He has to fight for his life everyday. And we do not hear enough of the black woman’s experience of this. Of she who is also subjugated, also not free. We know Malcolm X declared that she is the most disrespected person in the States. I also know that there is no country on Earth where patriarchal structures are not present and a living threat to femininity, to life. In Africa the black woman is the most exploited and the most invisible. She is expected to do all, be all and receive nothing for it. She is expected to serve, at any time, to any man who asks. And she and Queer people are being erased by African men.

The internet has allowed us to connect the dots, to understand that the struggle for liberation is ongoing. Understand; Black Lives Matter, Queer Lives Matter, and these struggles are indivisible, so let us not be divided. We are a global community that stands in solidarity against the forces of oppression that keep people enslaved. That keep people poor, that keep people othered. We need each other, and we need more people showing up for the fight. Which means somehow we must find common ground to continue. The simple understanding that until each and every single human being has a chance to live without threat of violence or oppression - we will keep fighting, and rioting, and raging, and raving, and writing. We will keep doing the work that keeps us connected and keeps us moving forward. I wish every single millennial would pull up. This is our future at stake, our opportunity to build a version of our world that is safe and peaceful.   

And real talk. Without African Americas dominance of global media this would not be happening. It is important to consider that, along with the internet, specifically black social media allows for lines and connections to be redrawn between the Diaspora and the Continent. A connection that bolsters the continuous fight for liberation. And the similarities between South Africa and the United States are startling—the racism, the economic oppression, and of course, the erasure of black women. Still, We do not compare atrocities.

People are in bondage and violence everywhere. The task is so enormous that each and every person has a role to play. Whether it be to fight, or to pick a side. Or to heal people, or to raise black children as far out of harm’s way as possible. We are all playing a part in building a stronger community when We remember that We, has to include everyone. We cannot erase those parts of society that make us uncomfortable. We have to embrace them. WE have a common destiny as People’s of Colour, as Women, as Queer. We don’t have time to continue to be awkward about sexuality, or to compete about who is more oppressed.

Not everyone is compatible with the new world. Not everyone can come. Some people want to catch up and can’t. Because they refuse to empathize and understand what centuries of violence and oppression do to a mind, to a person, to Us. Madness and stress, fear and rage abound. And We won’t carry any more than We have already. We are exhausted of making ourselves acceptable to a world that is killing us, tired of educating so called allies on how to actually be allied. Our work is to free our ourselves, to free our world, and those not working, are a part of maintaining the status quo.  And they will go down with the status they cling to so desperately. It seemed foolish to dream of a better world when the strong hold of white supremacy seemed so insurmountable and yet, with every day we gain more ground, we get closer as a community and we will never again be silenced. Our voices resound across this world and We will be free.