What Does Freedom Mean for Black America?
A Reflection on Social Injustice and a Call to Action
“We made the world we’re living in and we have to make it over.” — James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name
Last week began joyfully for most. On Monday, we laughed, danced, and enjoyed outdoor cookouts with friends and family as America celebrated her 240th birthday. Less than 48 hours later, not long after the colorful fireworks had finished bursting in air, our smiles melted under the weight of tears.
Like many of you, fear gripped my chest as I witnessed the unjust murders of two more Black men through the lens of traumatizing cellphone videos circulated on social media.
On Tuesday, we watched Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old Black man who had been selling CDs and DVDs outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, be tackled to the ground by two police officers and pinned against a car with his hands behind his back. Seconds after one of the officers yelled, “You f-ing move, I swear to God,” gunshots rang through the air and blood splattered against the car.
Hours later, we woke up to the video of Philando Castile, a 32-year-old cafeteria supervisor, who was shot repeatedly by a police officer in the driver’s seat of his car beside his girlfriend and child after being pulled over for a broken taillight in Falcon Heights, Minnesota. As Castile’s blood soaked through his white t-shirt, his girlfriend streamed the aftermath live on Facebook before eventually being taken away in handcuffs.
And on Thursday, only one day after Castile was killed inside of his car, we witnessed the shooting of eleven police officers in Dallas Texas during a peaceful protest against police brutality. The shooting now ranks as the deadliest attack on law enforcement officers since the 9/11 terror attacks. Before being killed in a standoff with police, the alleged suspect said during negotiations that he was upset at the Black Lives Matter movement, upset about the recent police shootings, and upset with white people in America.
The aftermath left us with five more men dead — Officers Lorne Ahrens, Michael Krol, Michael J. Smith, Brent Thompson, and Patrick Zamarripa — and millions of Americans questioning what freedom truly means in a country boiling with racial hostility.
We cannot sugarcoat the facts. This is America. And it is up to us to change the narrative.
What is even more haunting than witnessing the executions of Black fathers and the murder of innocent police officers is the realization that these episodes of community violence and police brutality are not new. With each new instance of law enforcement gone wrong, and with our government’s continued inability to institute meaningful gun control measures, another family is left with yet another Black body to mourn, another American city is handed yet another social media hashtag to commemorate, and our nation is left with yet another scar of injustice.
And we, hopeful citizens who often remain uncertain of the steps that we can take to help, find ourselves overwhelmed with a growing list of difficult questions that are answered with the blood of people we will never forget.
How gated must a community be before a Black boy wearing a hoody on his way to purchase Skittles is no longer profiled as a dangerous criminal?
Trayvon Martin.
How long can a Black boy play with a toy pistol in the park before being targeted by the police as a threat to public safety?
Tamir Rice.
How swiftly must a Black woman change lanes before she can drive without fear of being arrested and left to die in a jail cell?
Sandra Bland.
How loud must a Black man shout that he cannot breathe before police officers loosen their grip on his neck?
Eric Garner.
How early must a Black man stop selling CDs outside of a gas station before he is no longer presumed to be breaking the law?
Alton Sterling.
How many more questions will be answered with the blood of Black lives that do not seem to matter in America?
[Insert Name Here]
Enough. The time is now. The answer is you.
Now is the time for meaningful dialogue on the meaning of our country’s history of institutionalized racism. Now is the time to stand together in solidarity and challenge one another to transcend divisive ideologies. Now is the time to explore the root causes of our racial fears and unearth the drivers of our implicit biases.
In his famous compilation of essays, Nobody Knows My Name, African-American writer and social critic James Baldwin says,
“A country is only as good . . . only as strong as the people who make it up and the country turns into what the people want it to become . . . I don’t believe any longer that we can afford to say that it is entirely out of our hands. We made the world we’re living in and we have to make it over.”
The answers to our questions lie within our hands. Our country will only become as good and as strong as our leadership. Our country will only become as just and as equal as each and every citizen wants it to become. We must each own our individual contributions to our current reality, however big or small, and embrace our collective power to change it.
We must stand in the gap.
We are the ones.
We are the ones who must educate our communities about the truth behind the war on drugs, mass incarceration, the school-to-prison pipeline, the racial wealth gap, and the multitude of other systems of institutionalized racism and white supremacy that wage slow violence on education, housing, health, and employment opportunities for so many Americans.
We are the ones who must create new platforms for collaboration that empower us to share innovative ideas, promote diversity and inclusion for all Americans, and ultimately eliminate discrimination and racism on both the college campus and in the workplace.
We are the ones who must create new businesses and mission-driven organizations and authentic community economic development initiatives, while also pushing our government leaders to pass new laws and policies that dismantle systemic poverty and pave the way for social mobility.
We are the ones who must drive diversity in science, technology, engineering, the arts, and math, while also mentoring our youth to pave the way for our future scholars, teachers, inventors, non-profit board members, faith leaders, police officers, public health professionals, community organizers, and bold activists.
We are the ones who must define what freedom means for Black Americans and so many other marginalized communities in our country.
The time for silently waiting for something or someone to spark social change is over. Transformational change begins with us.
As President Barack Obama eloquently reminds us,
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
