What is Freedom?
by Cameron Herring-Mallett
Inspired by Ashely Mondesire aka “Big Lil Sis Ash”
Written while playing “Words of Wisdom” by 2pac
America, what is freedom? You tell me that Lincoln gave it to us out of moral obligation but I now believe it was just to end a long war. You told my ancestors that they have their freedom and will be given land and an animal as payment for slavery. To this day we haven’t received that payment. You told us that we can vote but we needed to prove that we are intelligent enough to do so; that we can be educated but can't go to the same schools or receive the same books, for said education, as you; that we’re “separate but equal.” So I ask, is that freedom to you? Because it doesn't seem like it to me. Is it freedom to enjoy dinner with our families after a good day's work only to be interrupted by a burning cross and men in white costumes with guns outside our doors, demanding we come outside to be lynched for their entertainment? When we marched for our civil rights peacefully the first time we were met with cops with dogs and powerful fire hoses. You say the government solved it all in 1964 by signing a paper just like the one before in 1864, but you later kill 3 of our leaders for it. You tell me that we are free even though you trapped us in housing projects you created with redlining so that we couldn’t live with you in suburbia. You drop drugs in those communities that were thriving and let it be destroyed, just like it did in 1921, but it was by our own hands. You start a war to use the very Amendment that set us “free” as a loophole to put us in jails for things that all Americans do. But then, again, we are equal and free. So I ask again what freedom is? Cause I can’t figure it out, I can't proudly say I'm a free American as you continue to kill us at the same rate as before, but Instead of those white costumes you used to use, now you hide behind a badge and gun. It's the Law that is your weapon. That you use your power of privilege, media, and the government to continue to push the original narrative that we are animals, subhuman, savage, and now “thugs”. So for the last time, Amerikkka, what is freedom and, once you tell me, can my people and I have it too?