the illusion of liberation

“Choice is an illusion, created between those with power, and those without.”

I know that capitalism is wrong, but I actively participate in it every day. I know every governing system in the world is completely made up, but I still choose to allow myself to be governed. In the game of performance vs. reality, we always choose the pretty lies over the harsh truth. Ignorance is bliss. 

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I recorded an episode called blue pill blues on my podcast a couple months ago highlighting my anger with the world for collectively choosing to remain victims. Myself included. In a world filled with red and blue pills, everyone decided to take the blue pill. By being given two options we assumed that meant we got a choice. But we lost our choice the moment we felt compelled to make one at all. At what point do we stop blaming the system and start blaming ourselves for allowing it to continue? You are not wrong for being made a victim, but you are wrong for choosing to continue existing as one. Being a victim means you're relinquishing your power. You can’t afford to do that. 

Every election cycle we complain about the electoral college and the politicians we “have to” “choose” from, and even though none of them provide any of the assistance that we actually need, we feel good because we “chose the lesser of two evils”. There is never a need to choose evil at all. The illusion of choice keeps you maintaining the same system you claim to hate. 

They could paint anything as liberation and we would consume it blindly. That’s the magic of deprivation. Black men were held from money for so long that they centered  their entire identity around  their ability to get it. The same people victimized the most by capitalism now dedicating their entire lives to win in a system purposely designed to keep them from doing so. Fueling the war against ourselves in the name of “freedom”. 

Black women were hypersexualized so much that as children many of our parents shunned us from forming healthy relationships with our femininity and sexuality. I couldn’t wear certain clothes or come near the color red for it was “too grown” - a trauma response to my people’s history of hypersexualization. This gave birth to generations of Black women not understanding ourselves and falling victim to abusive sexual relationships because of  not being allowed to discuss things that were deemed too “taboo”. We didn't get to learn the balance and truth of our womanhood. When you have no foundation to stand on, you will fall every time. So when they painted overt hypersexuality in the shade of “Sexual Liberation” and convinced us that femininity and sexuality were synonymous, they got us to hypersexualize ourselves so they no longer had to. You always want what you can’t have. The forbidden fruit left us standing in the foundation of our own destruction. Because we’ve been deprived of knowing otherwise, we now want to be associated with the same identity that we have been knowingly harmed by. 

This came to my mind after Chloe Bailey had to get on live to address people’s harsh comments about what she chose to wear on her instagram posts. She was literally crying on live because of other people’s judgement. But anyone with that level of genuine liberation wouldn’t give a fuck about what people who don't know them and aren't in their tax bracket have to say about them. Especially if they are living in authenticity. Her reaction makes me think that she couldn’t have been, and that makes me so sad. To me, it gave another young black woman feeling like the only way she could express her femininity was through hypersexualizing herself because that’s what is deemed popular at the moment. Some women feel the most feminine when they are showing their physical bodies, some when they are covered, some when they are wearing makeup, some when they have their hair done a certain way, some when they are expressing love. There is no wrong way to be who you are. Be very mindful though. It stops being liberation when you do it because the masses do. 

So ask yourself genuinely. Why would you want a seat at a rotting table? Do you really want it or does everyone else have it? Is it reclaimed or assimilated?

Is this who you are or who they told you you have to be?