‘Til It’s Backwards
When you think of freedom, what do you see? How does it feel? What does it smell like? Who’s there to enjoy it with you? Is there blood? Is it sweet like honey and your most beautiful memory, or will there be war? Are you in conflict? Is your freedom at the expense of everyone else? Or are you and your people just… free?
Recently, someone went out of his way, tiptoed into business that wasn’t his, and took it upon himself to disrupt a relationship with my client by screenshotting my support for Palestine on Instagram and calling them “disturbing.” And welp, I’m not going to stop screaming about a #FreePalestine, so a contract was breached because they made a choice - a choice for assumed political power.
There are a lot of deep truths to capitalist white supremacist colonial patriarchy (includes: homophobia, xenophobia, transphobia, ableism, and on and on) that the “regular” us will never see the guts of. There are decisions about war and worthiness that we may feel and assume, but never see the detailed math of. Somewhere a group of people are calculating our abilities to produce and making a policy decision about the neighborhoods we’ll get to live in and whether they’ll have clean air and water.
And that doesn’t make it any less necessary (and challenging) for us to do something… anything.
In the United States of America (which is my context, my pond at present), there is an understood rubric for who can be oppressed, who can be considered a minority, who is worth saving, and who is worth fighting for. Globally, we are socialized to understand who and what should cause us outrage.
So they thought.
The most I know about decision-making in war/conflict/international relations is the strategy it takes to win Battleship in my living room. I don’t pretend to know the intricacies of every historical fact that led us to this present moment wherever you’re sitting and at the intersections of whoever you are. But as a person who has visited Palestine, seen the wall, and occupied Israeli settlements, as someone who’s read a lot and heard firsthand from people living under occupation or reaping the benefits of as much, as per usual, history has been twisted and transformed to benefit - a lot of pockets.
Palestine, December 2015
What I do know is “where you live should not determine whether you live or die” and every child deserves to dream and build towards those dreams. What I also know is no one’s religious texts should be a guide for policy decisions. And I know that being the bully of the world can only last for so long.
There are many simultaneous attempts to force us to believe that a critique of Israel or any “world power” is a decisive, treacherous opinion that must be stopped. It’s very boomer of them to miscalculate the speed of the internet and the immediate insight we have into the fuck ass behavior of the US abroad - while our healthcare/education/pay/infrastructure/climate/etc/etc languishes at home.
“Here only butterflies and birds are free.” - Palestine, December 2015
A deep desire to see any people live an abundant existence should be the North Star by which all of us live and operate by. Our shared humanity requires it of us… I’d like to believe.
Some days this feels like a simulation. Like we’re living in some fucked up kid’s Sims universe. But no matter how many times I pinch myself - we’re still… here - in record-breaking heat, witnessing genocide, watching our hard-earned dollars fund things we don’t need and definitely didn’t ask for, getting the best health care right before death (if then) - while corporations play an “oops, my bad” on inflation.
Free Palestine ‘till it’s backwards. Free the Congo, Sudan, Haiti. Free Puerto Rico. Free Sistrunk, Liberty City, and Overtown. Free every Black and brown ‘hood struggling under the weight of gentrification - watching the new people get everything they told you was impossible. Free us all from the delusions of a country that believes we need war - but not school lunches; who believes we need more police with military-grade equipment and not water and air that doesn’t poison us; who believes that our food is meant to make a profit, not for sustenance. Free us all - and pay the reparations.
A blind support of any government is intellectually lazy. And ALL OF US should be able to demand an abundant safety for ourselves and others without fear of the consequences. Attempting to demand an allegiance to insanity through policies and repercussions is not the democratic way (talking about the noun and the political party).
Using “disturbing” to describe an Instagram post calling for an end to oppression is… a choice. A bold, privileged choice to ignore the better world that’s possible for all of us. Making a calculated decision to disrupt the income of a Black business owner is… another choice. An anti-Black and patriarchal choice (because yes, yes he is).
I hope we all find multitides of freedom in this lifetime. I hope that death isn’t the first time we find rest. I hope the dreams of “the least of these” come to pass. And I hope people learn to mind their business.
If not… Dear Jesus, let’s wrap this up with another flood.
