The ability to open one’s mouth and speak freely is a right so powerful, that the men that founded this country had to include it as the constitution. The first amendment in the bill of rights. It’s the first right people mention aside from the pursuit of happiness or the right to bear arms. These things were granted before slaves were granted free access to their bodies.
Freedom of speech, expression, and the right to a free press. These are just some of the rights “promised” to American people, and believed to be human rights for so many across the globe. Since freedom is a human right, it extends to all areas of people activity. Social, cultural, entertainment, sports, etcetera. Freedom is extensive, but its access has been limited, granted only to certain groups.
Black people have been limited in their access to freedom. Limited and restricted. We aren’t to do or say the same things as others. Our children aren’t able to experiment, live freely, explore sexuality, or gender. Respectability politics is alive and well within our nation. Some of the boundaries we have set ourselves. We have been trying to escape for years.
Martin Luther King, Jr. amongst other conservative, black, and Christian leaders pushed the boundaries on what is meant to be respectability politics. Starting a family, buying a middle-class home, a decent university education; Department store suits and faith in God. This coupled with a non-violent ideology was the means to an ends of oppression. Others like Malcolm X, a prominent member of the Nation of Islam, who did not automatically concede to the non-violent approach, also practiced a form of respectability politics. A nice suit, and self-education would be sure to change the perspective of a black man. And a change in perspective is necessary for black mankind.
The freedom that is mandatory now for the black man is redefined. We no longer require freedom of our bodies, freedom of our political rights, and freedom of access to space. While acceptance of our freedom in these spaces may be under surveillance, it is the lack of psychological and creative freedom that we are actively combatting now. It is apparent as there is an emerging black hippy culture that is generating.
Expressions of music, art, and writing.
Expressions of voices that haven’t spoken up in years.
Expressions of the quiet inner workings brooding inside all of us.
Expressions of a quiet generation.
When was the last time we had a renaissance?
Had some representation that truly expressed how we feel?
Expression of the mind and the heart through the mouth is still the more powerful.
Our clothes are changing. Our hair. Accessories and lifestyle.
Freedom is the movement of black bodies. For so long we were confined to plantations, sharecropping contracts, Jim Crow laws, and desperate migrations that trapped us in a racist north. Now, we jet set, establish travel clubs, and blogs. Access to other lands is freedom.
The classism that has plagues the black community, a thin veil of separation, is being retracted. Black celebrities are pushing the boundaries of black expression. We should be singing and dancing freely. We have waited a longtime to gain enough traction to gain physical and psychological movement. 400 plus years of limited access ends with the ideological expansion of the black man.
Our celebrities have taken on the life of role models, encouraging us to express our freedom, individually in our own way.
Liberation.
Liberation is up to us.
400 Years of torture, abuse, restriction, and psychological damage. Colonialism has divided us. However, allowing all of us to have access to true freedom, is the only way to move blacks out of the past.
Freedom of body, sexuality for the black man and woman, freedom of speech, thought, art, and dress. There is no room for restriction in access to freedom. It is the only way to liberate ourselves from the jaws of oppression.