Freedom Isn’t the Opportunity to Do Whatever We Please.

It’s the opportunity to do something right.

I’ve been writing a lot about hope and gratitude these last few weeks, and struggling with how to reconcile those ideas with a holiday whose initiation was only brought on by the struggles borne on the backs of slaves and the massacre of Indigenous peoples. I’ve been struggling with reconciling the celebration of “freedom” while simultaneously being aware of the exorbitant numbers of incarcerated people of color, of police brutality, and of the sort of privilege and discrimination that means that so many BIPOC aren’t as “free” as their white counterparts. And while I know thousands of people (BPOC included) fought and gave their lives for us to live in a country where we’re no longer oppressed by the monarchy, that same oppression merely took another form, as greed for power somehow always does.

In the words of Robin DiaAgelo in White Fragility, “The United States was founded on the principle that all people are created equal. Yet the nation began with the attempted genocide of Indigenous people and the theft of their land. American wealth was built on the labor of kidnapped and enslaved Africans and their descendants. Women were denied the right to vote until 1920, and black women were denied access to that right until 1964.”

So knowing all this, how can I celebrate? How do I find gratitude, when the issues we faced then are still issues we’re facing now?

What do I make of hope?

As I’ve been reflecting, I think there is still a universal way of reconciling the concept of “freedom” despite all the loss — and it’s founded on the ideal behind the following quote by Peter Marshall:

“May we think of freedom not as the right to do what we please, but as the opportunity to do something right.”

Regardless of the wrongs of the present and the past, and regardless of the freedoms we do indeed possess, if every choice, every day, and every situation is an opportunity for growth, it means that going forward, we choose to use every privilege we have to bring each and every one of us to true freedom and equal opportunity.

It means we use our freedom to protest those who are yet kept in cages at the border of our country. It means we use our freedom of speech to address the inequities in our judicial and prison systems. It means we use our freedom, in every way possible, to stand up against injustice by calling on our officials for change.

Freedom means reading and using every tool at our disposal to better understand the myriad of complex, covert, and constant methods that systemic racism and sexism use to perpetuate unethical practices — and then acting on that knowledge.

Pat Alexander wrote the following in a comment on Facebook:

“We have a lot to reflect on this 4th of July and also decisions to make in our choices of the direction we wish to move forward. The first settlers came here to explore and create the New World — I feel as if we are once again being given the opportunity to create a New World, one in which our truth is real freedom and equality for all people. Equal opportunity for entering our country… equal opportunity for healthcare and jobs. True freedom of religion as we learn to honor all religions. Equal opportunity for education… freedom to choose and to explore and to create as we honor each individual for who they are as we honor ourselves.”

While I take great issue with how settlers laid claim to this “New World,” and how Indigenous people have still not seen enough reparations for the atrocities committed against them, I also find the sentiment of reappropriating the concept of a New World to fit a more exact and relevant model a powerful notion. Whatever we create today is building upon and reshaping what was created yesterday. Day by day, decade by decade, we are reconfiguring the status quo, and making progress in doing so. The shift that will come — that is now coming — will be due to all the sacrifices made, the foundations laid, and the policies changed by those of the past brave enough to — despite all adversity — fight for true and equitable freedom for all.

Today, despite the seemingly innumerable hypocrisies threaded throughout this country’s history, I also see an immense opportunity to do something right. If we were truly founded on the notion of freedom, then it is our duty — and especially the duty of those in power— to ensure that all who live in this country are granted the same rights, can experience the same privileges, and are encouraged to embrace their heritage with the same fervor as their white and more privileged counterparts.

The notion of the equality of all peoples — regardless of race, sex, gender, religion, or belief — must not only live as an ideal in our heads, or as a written declaration in a constitution conceived by white men whose ownership of slaves and treatment of Indigenous peoples made that declaration itself a hypocrisy.

Rather, the notion of equality of all peoples must be reflected in our policies. It must be reflected in our conduct. And it must be reflected in our acknowledgment that up until this point, our country has not done enough to repair the wrongs of our past, nor to sing praises for those so courageously fighting for justice through the continued changing of minds, hearts, and practices.

I believe we have an immense opportunity to truly make this country into something in which our beliefs, ideals, and claims about freedom and equality are mirrored in deed and policy. We can’t change how we got here — and those of us who are angry that we celebrate a holiday mired in the soil tilled by numerous oppressed peoples are rightly so.

Do what you need to do to express your outrage over injustice. Vent what you must until you have effectively processed your anger. And then get to work.

We can find purpose, inspiration, and hope in the “notion of a nation we now get to build.”

And we can find gratitude in all the work put in by those who challenged the inequities of our past — in the literal blood, sweat, and tears of people like Frederick Douglas:

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

Like Harriet Tubman:

“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Remember you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars, to change the world.”

Like Martin Luther King, Jr:

“Let us seek not to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of hatred and bitterness.”

Like Angela Davis:

“I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change; I’m changing the things I cannot accept.”

And like Maya Angelou:

“In the flush of love’s light we dare be brave, and suddenly we see that love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet, it is only love which sets us free.”

Be the change you wish to see in the world — and let the feet of change be mobile.