Alicia T. Crosby
I woke up this morning, this “Independence Day”, with my mind stayed on freedom
Not “Make America Great Again” or the US neo-imperial project but actual freedom
The type that lets our young ones look forward to sunny days and clear blue skies because they don’t have to fear drone warfare or our bombs bursting in their air
And as I considered this freedom, I considered our current state of being
Thinking of how the toxic brew of white supremacy, transantagonism, homophobia, xenophobia, and classism
Have left too many breathless and lying as strange fruit on hard ground after their lynchings
Those who cough from the fumes of this brew, cry “Oh Freedom” between breaths
because we want our liberation
We want to not only be free of the violence that dismisses our humanity,
that attempts to rob us of our dignity
We want to be believed when we show the scars of our trauma
And not be told that our abuse and subjugation aren’t real
We want to wade in the waters that serves the source of life
Its stillness only disturbed by the splashes and stirrings of those swimming and riding its currents
Not troubled by black snake pipelines,
crude oil spilled from breaches the elders warned were there
Our life source placed on your altars built by greed and sacrificed to your god named Capitalism
We want our joy to be unfettered
Our personhoods to be celebrated
Our love to be uncontested
Our sacred lands to be honored
Our peace to be undisrupted
Our inherent worth to be upheld
Our lives to matter
We want our liberation to be complete
And until that all comes
I know that we, the Resistance, shall not be moved
We will give what we have to meet each other’s needs,
Grow hoarse crying out over injustice,
March and occupy space to disrupt the oppressive status quo
Counter lies by bearing witness to the truth
And love wildly and radically
Because we hold this truth to be self-evident
We know deep in our hearts a change is gonna come.
and that we shall overcome someday
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