Freedom: A Letter to Our Families

Freedom

is why you came here

when you chose to come here,

and

you chose to come here.

(Choice is a privilege)

and I’m sorry that freedom

doesn’t look like

the way you imagined it

I’m sorry that the price of freedom

For you

Was assimilation

Was swallowing your tongue

Was a little less turmeric and cumin

And a little more

“chai tea”

That the price of freedom

Was leaving the land of people-who-looked-like-you

And maybe for you

Was ignoring

Looking down on

Judging

Distancing yourself from

Your Black siblings

The very reason you’re allowed to be here.

Because they told you to

And you did what they told you to

Because you were conditioned to believe

It was not safe otherwise

To rebel, to speak out, to change, to resist.

And that $6 “chai tea” from that corporate coffee shop

Tasted a lot like white supremacy

And we drank it.

An acquired taste.

Because the more you drank, the higher you flew.

Because, by God, we were all just so

“Grateful To Be Here”

No matter the cost.

And I’m sorry

Amerikkka

Made you forget.

And taught you that

“ok Brown boys and girls,

(and nothing in between)

In order to be here

You must follow these conditions”

But what I’m trying to say to you

My family

Uncles, aunties

Meri jaan

Is that “these conditions”

Mean, and have meant

Black lives

Bodies, minds, spirits

Killed.

We have been

Climbing over

Bodies, minds, spirits, lives

just to get to the top of the pyramid.

The cost of the “freedom”

That you’ve known

Was, in its own way, violent.

And guess what?

It doesn’t have to be

And maybe no one told you that

Because in reality,

We’re not free either.

Because our siblings aren’t.

Until now

Maybe now

We realize, we don’t have to climb this ladder

There are other ways through the mountains

Alternative methods of safety

Other means of survival

A kind of

Collective liberation.

And so we march

We belt “Defund the Police”

Sing “Black Lives Matter”

We understand that here is not what we thought

Here

Was.

This “USA” isn’t perfect

It isn’t the sanctuary you imagined,

Not for everyone

Not for the people we love

and call neighbor

and friend and family

Not in the way it should be.

And while we didn’t create these

Systems of white supremacy,

We still have to take responsibility

For the damage we’ve caused

For what we’ve upheld

Simply by trying to fit

To belong

To be here.

And now it’s time to take off our jeans,

That were, to be honest, way too tight to begin with,

And put our sarees back on

Lift up our lehengas

Roll back our kurtas

And do the work

And do what may feel like a kind of “letting go”

A kind of “burning down”

Of this idea of Amerikkkan identity

We once held,

And instead

Rebuild ourselves

Rebuild our communities

Rebuild the country

Rebuild the world

Find freedom for the most vulnerable

Find freedom for our Black siblings,

Queer, trans, and non-binary family,

So that we too

Can liberate

One another

And experience a taste of what

We’ve never really had before,

(Not in the way we should have)

(Not in the way we deserved)

Because They’ve never really had it before:

A new curry,

Using what our ancestors taught us

A dash of this, a pinch of that

But mixing in something new

Taking out the “tea” in “chai tea”

Sifting out the colonization

Draining ourselves of the white supremacist capitalism ingrained

In a Brown body meant to be

A lot spicier

A lot thicker

A lot more full

A lot more bold

To find,

collectively:

Freedom.