Now, before you think into that headline too much, just keep reading.
I’ve been trying to write this for a while now. I have had so many ideas and ways I wanted to write about this, but I knew I needed to centralize my thoughts and not just go on a rant. There is a revolution happening and now is not the time to be silent.
In April 2016, Beyoncé released one of the most influential albums of the decade, if not ever. And to be quite honest, I am not sure how many of my white friends could name even one song from it…
Lemonade is a beautifully soul-crushing album that tells the stories of Beyoncé’s upbringing and relationship with her father, her marriage, her fears of forgiveness and finishes with two immensely powerful songs about race, social injustice and police brutality in America.
“Freedom” is a rallying cry about the hundreds of years of oppression that the Black community, specifically Black women, has endured.
Freedom
Freedom
I can’t move
Freedom, cut me loose
Freedom
Freedom
Where are you?
‘Cause I need freedom, too
I break chains all by myself
Won’t let my freedom rot in hell
Hey! I’ma keep running
‘Cause a winner don’t quit on themselves
I’ma wade, I’ma wave through the waters
Tell the tide, “Don’t move”
I’ma riot, I’ma riot through your borders
Call me bulletproof
Lord forgive me, I’ve been runnin’
Runnin’ blind in truth
I’ma wade, I’ma wave through your shallow love
Tell the deep I’m new
I’m telling these tears, go and fall away, fall away
May the last one burn into flames
I mean if that doesn’t give you chills just reading it… go listen to it. And I didn’t even get to Kendrick Lamar’s verse.
I wanted to write about this song because of the timeless power that the words hold, and because I don’t think many white people have heard it. Beyoncé released this in 2016. Four year later, and the words are still so relevant. She pleas for freedom, asking where it is. Where has it been…
She warns that she will wade through the waters… the waters of our world, our society. In the ocean, the tides control the waters’ direction, flow and movement. The tide’s control could be interpreted as a symbol for the government and specifically, the system of law enforcement and police in our society. The government controls where we emblematically move as groups and individuals. The police imposes that movement, directing the climate of ease, or in the Black communities, a climate without ease. No feeling of safety or alliance with the police, only fear.
Beyoncé calls for a riot as the tides eventually change and bring a storm. Later, she sings that her tears will “fall away, fall away, and may the last one burn into flames.”
Flames. Smoke. Shallow Love. Burning down.
Why are people surprised of the destruction, rioting and looting that has come after the murder of George Floyd?
I knew white boys in school that would punch a hole in the wall because they lost a beer pong game. And you’re mad that people, who have lived in a cold fear of being murdered while getting pulled over for a traffic violation, going on a jog or walking down the street because of the color of their skin, f****d up a Target?!
White people who have not been able to understand this have to open their eyes, or at least listen to Kimberly Latrice Jones preach about the unjust, unfair and broken system Black people have lived in since they were forced to come 400 years ago. The poverty gap between poor Black people and the rest of the world is so vast and expansive that looters have become very present at these riots because they have nothing else. It makes sense. The system is broken and the Black communities living in poverty are set up to fail because the system has not evolved.
Wanting to burn down the entire system and everything it represents is reasonable in relation to the centuries of oppression, hatred and violent racism that Black people have endured. We should count ourselves lucky that “black people are looking for equality and not revenge.”
So why not (symbolically) burn the system to the ground?
Through this revolution, we have witnessed that there is no correct way to protest. You’re not going to make every party happy, even if it’s peaceful. Up until George Floyd’s death, no one was listening.
This brings me to Colin Kaepernick. *sigh* Let me collect myself.
Drew Brees has proven that we have so much work to do. That man was absolutely shredded on television and social media, and we aren’t even 100% sure if understood what he was saying even after the third apology. I really hope finally understood and that his PR team didn’t just walk him through all of those responses. But, who knows.
All I know is that Kaepernick was right. All along. I watched people virtually scream in agreement when Trump called him a son of b**** and to get off the football field – all for a peaceful protest about an issue none of Trump’s followers or the others cared to know about or had the human decency to empathize with.
The people (Trump, the NFL) who didn’t understand saw a wealthy Black athlete disrupting the season-ticket holders’ Sunday afternoons with “politics” …
So, they banned him – dropped him so fast that Laura Ingraham didn’t even have time to tell him to shut up and throw the football.
When I saw Kaepernick kneel, the first image I thought of was when Tommie Smith and John Carlos each raised a fist in the air during their medal ceremonies at the Olympic Games in Mexico City. People were outraged at the time – the International Olympic Committee banned and suspended Smith and Carlos for their protest.
That was in 1968. Fifty-two years ago.
Kaepernick’s kneel, which he explained multiple times, gave the silenced police brutality issues in America a voice, but only to people who wanted to hear and wanted to listen. White people who didn’t agree with Kaepernick’s protest were blindfolded by the same flag that has kept them free and without fear of harm due to the color of their skin for their entire lives.
To people who thought their white grandfathers were the only ones who fought in wars of America’s past, Kaepernick’s kneel disrespected the flag, which they claim symbolizes freedom for all – the American Dream. But how can a flag that is supposed to represent the freedom for all of a country’s people have an equivalent meaning to someone who has never had the same freedoms as their white counterparts?
“Freedom, freedom where are you?
Cause I need freedom too…“
Can you not hear their cries? It was never about the flag. It’s about the systemic racism that has grown and weaved its way through years of history, despite white people thinking everyone is treated “equally” and that slavery was “abolished”. There has never been equality for all. The American Dream has yet to come true…
I recently looked into the reversal of the Great Migration. From 1910 to 1970, about 6 million Black Americans departed from the South for other parts of the country. This massive distribution of people was named the Great Migration. They left the South to look for jobs in the Midwest, West and Northeast, and to escape the lingering caste system of the racism in the South, which included the beginnings of the Jim Crow laws and sparse economic opportunities.
The U.S. Census Bureau claims that the reversal of the Great Migration began as soon as the first wave ended. From 1975 to 1980, the South gained more than 100,000 Black Americans after losing 250,000 from 1965 to 1970. This reversal was ignited as people began to look for post-recession economic opportunity, especially in the early 2000s.
But, what got me was that Black people in the Northeast moved back to the South in the 1970s and 80s because there “was also a push from the North, both in terms of the economy and in terms of racial relations,” William Frey, author of Diversity Explosion: How New Radical Demographics Are Remaking America.
We keep pushing Black people out. Back and forth they went looking for homes, places of refuge and safety. Refuge in their home country. We’ve covered our eyes and ears to their cries for help.
We’ve turned our backs to the systematically-structured Black communities in poverty just minutes away from our suburbs.
We’ve silenced those who have peacefully spoken out in protest.
We have to stop. Enough is enough.
I think the Earth and God realized this. The COVID-19 pandemic was the beginning phase of a universal TIMEOUT. Not a 30 second, not a 1 minute…an extended time of self-reflection and essential national change.
The Earth locked us in our homes, stole the key and said “Y’all I need a minute.”
And God said, “Figure. It. Out.”
We cannot take this time for granted. We have to keep working. Everything on social media that explains the Revolution, emphasizes someone’s story, lists ways to help, gives links to donate and directs people to sign petitions is all awesome. But, the hard work will be done backstage when no one is watching. It won’t be something you can post in your Instagram story or take a picture of, but the hard work will be moving the Black Lives Matter movement in the direction it needs to go.
George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Treyvon Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Philando Castile, Walter Scott, Beonna Taylor and so many others’ stories are so much more than a hashtag. Say their names. Explain their stories. Know the facts. Scream for justice. Breonna Taylor’s killers have not been arrested. We have to keep going.
Wave goodbye to the normal you knew before March 12th, because it is never coming back. The Black Lives Matter movement sparked the overdue Revolution, and if you aren’t with us, get out of the way.
I wrote about this because Black Lives Matter, and being silent or neutral is siding with the oppression. I know my white privilege and know the work I have to do as an individual. I posted this because if these words can move someone enough to Google something they didn’t know about or change a heart, then that will be a new step on the right path – an additional anti-racist fist raised in the air.
The last tweet I looked at that Donald Trump tweeted had 56,000 favorites and 16,000 retweets in 36 minutes. We have work to do people.
“If you surrender to the air, you can ride it.” -Toni Morrison
MAGGIE PRUITT 