Liberation Letter: Who am I, but Black?
Who am I, but Black?
By aurelius francisco, FLM Co-Founder & Co-Executive Director
My Blackness defines me. In this Black skin is a storied history, a powerful present, and a future of abundance. Black History Month has arrived once again and all our people got something to say. It’s always Black History Month ‘round here—Dashikis to the front, Uncle Ruckus to the back. Memes galore, providing comedic relief to the state of Black people in this world, doing what we have always done–laughing, singing, dancing through the turmoil. We laugh despite the generational trauma because the alternative is fatal.
Regardless of this humor, there is an omnipresent force that encompasses our lives:that person following us in the store, chasing us in their truck, calling 911 because we wear a hoodie and then taking matters into their own hands. This evil force is one we have fought since we were first trafficked across an ocean to build these United States for their gain. Whiteness is, was, and will always be a terror to Black folk so long as it exists. But it need not continue.
Black people have never not resisted. From the slave ship which were sites of the earliest rebellions, to Haiti overthrowing the colonial power of France to today–we still resist. Still suffer. But we are here. And this life, this presence, is something to behold. At the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama the incomparable Toni Morrison’s words are etched in emboldened letters reading:
And O my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck un-noosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it, and hold it up. And all your inside parts that they’d just as soon slop for hogs you got to love them. The dark, dark liver–love it, love it, and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet, more than lungs that have yet to draw free air. Hear me now, love your heart for this is the prize.
Black love, and life, and breath are the prize. We are the prize. And despite the forces that continue to shackle us to the ‘old days’ (that don’t feel so old these days), we grow and organize and build and create and breathe. Such a simple thing breathing is. Yet a profound act–every breath, in and out, is a prize, a trophy awarded to us for surviving, a stark juxtaposition that has been the reality of Black existence in this world for centuries since colonizers decided to loot and steal human capital through spectacular violence for their greedy means.
When I DreamRadically to a Black future of liberation I picture us alive. Black History Month is about celebrating Black life in all its shades. This month, and all year, it is our responsibility as Black folk to do everything we can to practice joy and love, for ourselves and our people. We must continue practicing collectivism, shucking the “American Dream” of the Black capitalist billionaire. Racial capitalism is that aforementioned force. As the brilliant Black queer socialist poet and warrior Audre Lorde informs us, we were never meant to survive in this country. Never meant to rise to the places Shawn Carter has gotten. But Carter’s stature is not the freedom I picture. One or two of us getting to the pinnacle of American capitalism is the inevitability of millions of crabs in a barrel; somebody will eventually rise to the top. No, we must turn away from the master’s tools, as Lorde demands, because capitalism will never serve us. Nor will cisheteropatriarchy. Black men have work to do to show true love, radical love for Black women and Black queer and trans folk, a love that defends, that supports, that steps back, that shows up, and doesn’t try to imitate the power of the wealthy white man.
Freedom is a place, word to Ruth Wilson Gilmore, not simply an abstract concept. That place will be full of Black life, of Black joy, of Black abundance. Where we are no longer scrapping for crumbs but have all we need. Where we live for one another, alongside one another. Where we grow our food and support each other’s passions and trades. A place free from state violence, and where communal violence is transformed and harm is accounted for. Freedom is home. Where borders no longer exist and property isn’t the prize because our relationships are the treasure.
A radical Black future is solidarity across the diaspora. Black people exist all across the world and our culture is pristine. It’s the prettiest of mosaics. Nigeria’s own Burna Boy and South Africa’s Tyla are running the music game right now. Our music is the revolution. Our light is amazing to witness. Black struggle is a global struggle; Angela Davis, Huey Newton, June Jordan, and Malcolm X have shown us that global solidarity is crucial to our collective liberation. We see these struggles for freedom right now in Palestine as more than 25,000 human beings have been slaughtered at the hands of Israeli bombs, paid for by United States dollars. In the motherland, Sudan and Congo struggle under repressive leadership. The underdevelopment of the continent is still reverberating.
But we are still here. Organizing Atlanta’s Stop Cop City, massive actions shouting Free Palestine in The Bay, Istanbul, Brooklyn, and right here in Oklahoma City. Organizing for reproductive freedom, against book bans, and for historical truth to be allowed in our schools. We got work to do–we got joy and life to seed.
Summer 2020 mass action at the Oklahoma State Capitol
“This is a Summer of revolt.
This is the Summer that we collectively breathe light into a new world. Or at least, the possibility of one.”
~Robyn Maynard in Rehearsals for Living