Third to last Wednesday in 2025. Time, huh? I am Working At It In Five Parts, in homage to Toni Cade Bambara, and her piece of the same name. If you missed, here’s Part I & II. The ‘It’ I am working at is the it that is on, freedom also known as love, love also known as freedom. Somewhere, sometime, some place to start!
At the top of the summer I heard one of the leaders of Cooperation Jackson speak. He named that one of the biggest challenges in shifting toward a solidarity economy is that in this society we are socialized first as consumers. I have been chewing on this……how degrading. You know? We are so much more than that.1
We are taught to acquire, not prepared to govern. We are taught obedience, to fall in line.2 We are not asked to participate. We learn to conflate safety with control. In this society, freedom is the ability to do or buy whatever you want, whenever you want.
I am making my way through Freedom’s Revival by Mia Birdsong and Saneta deVuono-powell, which includes both a sharp rundown of all the toxic mythology about freedom that American culture and violence depends on, and an expansive, energizing, gorgeous definition of what they call interconnected freedom.
As part of their definition and provocation they include, in the words of Ta-Nehisi Coates,
“….the freedom of Harriet Tubman, which calls you to risk your own…..”
“….the freedom of Nat Turner, which calls you to give even more…..”
These sorts of freedoms ask something of you, require participation and daring. They require choices, actions, energy. I was taught that freedom is a state, but it is more of a process. I was taught that it is an ideal, and it is, but it is also an ongoing, moment to moment negotiation. You gotta get involved.
Someone I know asks “what have you tried?”3 when people share a difficulty with her. I love this question because it assumes the wisdom within the person struggling, assumes their agency, and respects their time by not suggesting they might have already done. It also assumes that there is something to try! It does not diminish or commiserate.
Chef’s kiss! Set it off. Some questions grow us, free us, love us, require more of us.
To be continued……
Bambara writes elsewhere, “I am not interested in collaborating with the program of the forces that systematically underdevelop.” What It Is I Think I’m Doing Anyhow p. 162 ↩
“In any case, passivity can be very powerful. It’s an efficient way of shifting responsibility—and blame—onto other people. And instead of having to do anything, you get to be angry all the time.” - Deborah Eisenberg ↩
shout out Amber & thanks to MaKshya Tolbert for putting me on ↩