Apparently we’re free.
Clearly we’re not free when we have to give ourselves European names to be given a fairer chance of getting a job.
We’re not free when our loved ones cells and body parts can be stolen, cloned and/or sold.
We’re not free when our children are stopped and searched more frequently then any other race.
We’re not free when as recently as March of this year, Otis Byrd was found hung from a tree in a forest in Mississippi.
We’re not free when there’s an 18:1 sentencing disparity for Blacks when found with cocaine.
We’re not free when Black academics cannot be found in universities that have a predominantly Black student population.
We’re not free when the oppressor has control of our homeland’s resources.
We’re not free when the history of western oppression is taught to our children as Black history.
We’re not free when we’re experimented on without our knowledge or consent.
We’re not free when those that profited from our genocide have never been held accountable.
We’re not free when we still divide ourselves up by colour and status.
We’re not free when we have to uphold the outdated strategy of respectability politics in order to survive.
We’re not free when we make up the minority of the populace, but the majority of the prison population.
We’re not free when we’re under represented in government and politics.
We’re not free when large private corporations can displace and impoverish entire populations for the sake of sport and entertainment.
We’re not free when we cannot trace our ancestry back further then the last four generations.
We’re not free when our water can be poisoned and the Government condones it.
We’re not free when our homes are flooded and instead of rescuing the vulnerable, reporters in helicopters make a spectacle of them.
We’re not free when corrupt officers kill us and walk away with their lives intact.
We’re not free when we speak up about institutionalised racism, only to be told that WE are racist.
We’re not free
They just made us believe we were.
By Mackayla Forde
