Define freedom and what you determine it looks like among your peers, in a community with a limited population that reflects the color you wear. Define unity and how you have been able to create that in the same spaces when paired with that same limited population. Now remind me, yourself and the other voices, shoes and souls surrounding us, how you are free if you are competing with the same souls you fight to save? 

Uhuru Sasa, Swahili for ‘Freedom Now,’ was curated by Alumnus Lawerence “Larry” Watson. Before departing on his creative endeavors after obtaining his Bachelor of Arts from SUNY Oswego, he has raised a plethora of great questions, calling for the reflection of our own identities while navigating the college experience for a person of color. In an environment where we have experienced bias and prejudice, have we stopped for a second to breathe and realize that among these “big fish” seemingly forcing us to shrink into smaller ones, are the same peers that can help us bridge the gap. Although we are in a space where there are some bad apples, we must realize that the entire tree is not poisonous. The miseducated are unable to utilize their discernment enough to realize a vulture from a mouse, wanting to learn more about the opposite population surrounding them.

We have demanded calls to action, daring each other to fight for our rights across this campus, fight for the right to exist in these spaces… but when we are given the opportunity to be in those spaces, does that determine the end of our journey? 

If bridging the gap and repolishing the vessel means putting the work on pause after a slight reward, should we not have the equal rights we have been longing for? Or do the equal rights we long for already exist in this atmosphere, where it would be difficult to find the same opportunities in an 80 mile radius from here? Have we thought about the fact that subconsciously we already know that though the bridge is not fully gapped, we have begun to rebuild it by coexisting in these same places with our foes? Have we lowered the bar and began competing with our neighbors, the same ones we scream and protest to protect? Have we lost sight of freedom, claiming it in a way that generations before have never done it? Or have we become comfortable with the idea that competing with our brothers and sisters is easier than educating a man with lighter shade, convincing them that being our opponents is okay because we have adapted the same ideologies anyway? 

When you think of being free, where does it end? Did it end with the 44th president sitting in office? Have you succumbed to America’s values, or have you adapted your own? Are you actively creating safe spaces not just for yourself, but the people around you as well? Freedom begins with forgiving, educating, applying and being unapologetically yourself in a room full of people who do not look like you. Freedom only begins when you are ready to fly.

Photo by: RDNE Stock project via Pexels