What is freedom

What is freedom?

What is freedom?

Freedom to me is not being forced into a box

Not labeled by my body, or my gender.

No judgement on my outward appearance

No judgement of who I love

Who I want to be

What career I wish to follow

Freedom to me

Is A Strength Not Yet Acquired

Freedom is being able to walk down the street in a predominantly white neighborhood

And Not Being Scared For My Life

That Someone Will Call The Police and Sign My Death Certificate with a call

Another Picture On A Poster At A Black Lives Matter Protest

Another Hashtag on TikTok,Instagram,Twitter #JusticeFor[Insert Name]

“Shot And Killed At The Hands Of A Police Officer Who Is Being Paid To Murder”

Freedom to me is to relax

Not having to code switch in front of someone who lacks melanin

So they don’t think im ghetto

And not getting mad when they offend me

Because if I do Im an angry black girl

Freedom to me

Is lack of ignorance

No more back handed compliments of 

“You’re so smart”

“You speak so well”

As if being smart and speaking properly is a inherently white trait

As if all people of color are the same

As if we can’t be educated

If I make a grammatical error I did it on purpose

Watch this poem be used as ammo

Watch this poem turn into a bomb, a gun,a knife 

Let it be a torch being shown upon the people who have been silenced

Freedom to me is a harsh reality

Show people what they don’t want to see

Tell them what they don’t want to hear

Fredrick Douglass was born on February 14 and we hide and ignore this

In favor of cheap flowers and chocolates you can get any day of the year

Martin Luther King Jr. wasn’t always a nonviolent protester.

His right hand a gay black man told him about the ways of Ghandi

Martin Luther King Jr. owned several guns

You can think the Black Panther Movement for Free Breakfast

It’s not like a lot of schools will teach this anyway.

I Shekinah Peterson was born on the first day of Black History Month 

But 28 or 29 days is never enough

Abraham Lincoln compensated slave owners after the Emancipation Proclamation

But slaves weren’t actually freed until six months later on June 16 or Juneteenth

We we left poor while our oppressors got another leg up

Another foot on our necks, another gun pointed at us

Another black person lynched and burned for trying to be successful

Freedom is liberation

Freedom is breathing

Freedom is laughter

Freedom is….