Fighting for Liberation and Living Free

June is Pride month as well as the celebration of Juneteenth. Amid all of the celebrations, I have been reflecting on liberation and freedom and their meaning. What are we being liberated from and what does it mean to be free?

Juneteenth marks the day that enslaved Africans in Texas were finally informed of their freedom. Pride month is the celebration which began with riots and protest led by BIPOC trans women. Both of these celebration are ones about freedom and liberation from oppression.

I don't often think of the link between liberation and freedom. I often use the two words with little regard for the nuance of their difference. Yet there is a profound link to be made amid the Supreme Court's decision to reverse Roe v. Wade, which protected the liberty of humans with uteri to choose an abortion.

I see liberation as an act in which we are removed from that which binds, oppresses. I see freedom as a state of being in which humans have the capacity to make choices and create. We are in need of liberation. Liberation from a system that seeks to assert domination and control over others. Liberation from theologies complicit with the colonial project of control, subjugation, and commodification of humans. These are the foundations of the reversal of Roe v. Wade.

Humans should be free. Freedom means agency and choice. It means sovereignty over our bodies. It means community connected autonomy. Liberation then must be from the colonial project of control and religious domination.

We live in a world in which a select few can choose to limit freedom and assert domination over others. I hope we find ways to continue to pursue liberation, whether our own or others, I hope we are able to live and be free.