What does it mean to be free?
What does it mean to be free? To salute the sailors who have returned from war at sea? Or to not have a care in the world as you carve you and your lover’s name into your favorite tree?
What does it mean? to be free? Is the art of being free for you and not me? They say to be free one mustn’t look at the colors on the faces that we see... and yet, you are kept from becoming involved with this foreign word called “free” if you were to look like me. How can that be?
I may be that sailor who has returned from war at sea. Why not salute me? My lover and I may carve our names into that same wood, but they would rather uproot and remove than have black love in a white man’s tree. You see, the only tree that accepts me is an Oak with a limb that hangs me. How can that be?
What does it mean to be free? Correct me if i’m wrong, but freedom should not require innocent people to plea. Not to a country or a government that is built on the whipped backs of those who came before me. Wouldn’t you agree?
What does it mean to be free? To be able to road trip and not fear for your life if you were to stop at a store and had to pee? Hopefully, your hands aren’t in your pockets. Take them out and put them to your sides where they ought to be. Is this it? Is this what it’s like to be free?
There is no way that people see this country and think to themselves, “that country is the key. the key to being free.” Yeah, it’s the key, but only if you don’t have kinky hair and melanated skin like me. But how so if that’s the same way the well-respected Jesus came to be? Would he have been free if you witnessed him nailed to that cross while looking like me?
So this question is strictly for those who have experienced it...
What does it mean to be free? And when will it be available to the people who don’t look like you, but look more like me?