I’LL DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO BREAK FREE!!!
I’LL DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO BREAK FREE!!!
I’LL DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO BREAK FREE!!!
As I stood up in this conference room with about 200 other people screaming at the top of my lungs that I would truly do whatever it took to break free, I looked back on the times that I had broken free in the past and remembered that it was never pretty. Marriages ended, a child lost, faith communities that I was no longer a part of, jobs I had walked away from, friends who at one time felt like family, that I would never talk to again. That was the price of freedom. And it was a price I would pay time and time again if I had to.
Oh, freedom
Oh, freedom
Oh, freedom over me
And before I'd be a slave
I'll be buried in my grave
And go home to my Lord and be free
I don’t know if all Black kids played this game, but, when I was a child, my cousins and some friends used to be a story-telling game, “If I were a slave…”. This wasn’t the official name. But often, we would make up stories about what we would do if we found ourselves in slavery. Whenever we would tell those stories, I would inevitably end up angry. At first it would be funny. We would make up a variety of stories of how we would escape, whether we would give up and then we would act out some kind of buffoonery making light of what our ancestors probably had to do to survive, and just use comedy—as Black folks often do—to get the energy of shame or other uncomfortable feelings that might come up around the history of this country. But, if anyone ever mentioned that I was a little lighter and that I might be a house slave, I would start getting uneasy. And if my Muslim cousins said anything about me practicing the “White Man’s” religion, the stories would be less funny. I would think about the realities of that institution and I would start getting serious. So serious that I would start saying that if I was in slavery, I would never fall in love or have children so that the enslavers would never have anything to hold over me. I would not allow myself to be weakened by affection for other people so that when I escaped slavery, I would not miss them and they would not miss me. Freedom over everything would have been my mantra.
The Decisions Made In Games Are Real
Games are nothing less than decision making simulators. We don’t often think of them this way. But, the same synapses that fire in making decisions in games are the same ones that fires when we make decisions in “real life”. And, unless we are mindful and aware our brain barely can tell the difference between something that happens in our heads and something that happens in real life. That’s why I can clearly say that when I started getting upset in the “If I were a slave…” game and started imagining my escape, it was indicative of some of the decisions I would make in my later life.
In the video above that I made with Rev. Evelyn Bourne, we talk about some of those decisions that we made as we chose freedom over the institutions that tried to keep us in a diminutive state when it came to our Spiritual liberty.
Sorry for the audio quality on my end. It is a little imbalanced. But, I believe that the conversation is important enough to bear with it. As I shared in previous messages, I write and create for collective liberation. I want to help people receive more of themselves. There are just way too many influences in our lives that seem to serve only to distract us from the deeper realities of who we are or what we are capable of. My intention with everything I do is to is to keep me in remembrance and to welcome and invite others to go toward the joy of of being free—whatever it takes.
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