What Does Freedom Mean to You?
I wasn’t born here, but my early family members came to the US by way of the US military when the Philippines was a US colony. My grandfather and great uncle served in the US Navy during WWII. I have a still-living uncle who served in the US Marines. Some of my early family members were brought to the US in the 1930s to help build the railroad as well as serve in various levels of the military. My aunts came as nurses and teachers after WWII. They all did their part to help defend, build, heal, teach, feed, and nurture America, even though America wasn’t always fair to them. But America was good to me, their descendant. I came to Seattle with pretty much nothing and no prospects, only the desire to start anew. To start fresh. I was even homeless for a short time and slept on the grassy slope outside Pike Place Market. I had a bus pass and a library card, and that was how I started my life in America.
I’m not in the military, and I don’t condone violence or bully tactics. What I can do is remind people of the forceful grinding away of our Constitution, the rolling back of our Rights and Freedoms, and the chipping away of our Democracy in recent years, piece by piece and on the sly.*
About those yellow T-shirts…
I was only 10 when Ferdinand Marcos was ousted by the fed-up people of the Philippines who felt they had been abused, cheated, robbed, and lied to. The country wore yellow t-shirts in solidarity. I remember a sea of people raising their fists high in the air and chanting: PEOPLE POWER! My mom had brought me with her to help distribute bottles of water to people on the field camping out and rallying for change. We wore yellow t-shirts to signal our allegiance. It felt like a dangerous mission—soldiers walked around with machine guns and the fields were spotted with makeshift dugouts. Meanwhile, my mom and I walked around or hopped over barbed wire, hunched over just in case. She said to me: You don’t get it yet, but this is very important.
Those yellow t-shirts symbolized a coming together in solidarity around an ideal. PEOPLE POWER. That marked the end of Marcos’s 20-year dictatorship.
In 1776, the US was founded around an ideal, an ideal that so many have since fought and died for: Freedom. Freedom from tyranny and oppression. Freedom to be who you are, to love who you love, and to maintain the right over your own body. But as we reflect on what True Freedom means, and as inspired by the great James Baldwin, these words from Robert Jones, Jr. arise from the noise:
“We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.”
Sure, we can agree to disagree and leave it at that. (“The dress is gold!” “No, the dress is blue!”) But anytime a disagreement stokes the fire of hate that leads to violence, suffering, and fear for one’s life, then we have a problem. Just as Uncle Ben advised Peter Parker in Spider-Man, “With great power comes great responsibility,” we must regard freedom with reverence. Freedom without responsibility gives way to abuse. Freedom without responsibility can be twisted as an excuse to carry out evil intentions and poison the truth.** It is Freedom being perverted. It is Freedom being raped. It is Freedom in shackles, hence, it is NOT Freedom.
I get it now, what my mom meant all those years ago.
Remember: WE THE PEOPLE. Don’t let tyrants and fools spit on the sacrifices of our ancestors.
For Bonus Points…
What do we call people who exercise their freedom to run a red light? (Answer below***)
* In case you’re wondering… yes, I am talking about the overturning of Roe v Wade; the Supreme Court ruling that one person is above the law; and Project 2025, which aims to make Christian Nationalism the law of the land, favoring patriarchy, trampling down women, making the rich even more filthy rich at the expense of the poor, and punishing anyone who does not adhere to this ideology.
** Yes, I am alluding to certain groups who have claimed Freedom of Speech as their excuse to spew blatant lies and purposefully spread harmful, destructive disinformation.
***Assholes.