Free Your Mind: An intellectual mash up

If you don’t be yourself, someone most surely will be you- Larry Young

Amidst the bereavement and perhaps even despite the injurious hit our public image took after that mind trip to the Twitterdome of an awards show last week, there is still a discernable change in my relationship to Independence Day. One simply has to understand the impact of change, while not seismic every day, is continually felt and Michelle Obama is just ramping up.  Franken finally wins, we seem to be withdrawing some troops, and Michael Vick is out.   This is the first 4th of July that my country celebrates with a black president. And as our nation celebrates its Independence, we can and should share.  Happy birthday from us.  Many of us feel more American now than we ever have.

Maybe, just maybe we are beginning to be free from the desire to be anything but what we are. We are Lil’ Wayne and we are Clarence Thomas.  Joe Jackson and Freddie Jackson.  The President.  Make no mistake, we aspire to the high side, not resolve ourselves to the low end. On this Independence Day, let’s marinate on what we call “freedom”, and what it looks like, feels like now.   Could it be that we really did free ourselves to some degree, on some levels, discarding some stereotypes, only to create new ones?  Whoa, this independence thing is heavy.  And the load has been heavy lately. What our nation needs is a good party, a few barbeques, and some cookouts.  Especially some cookouts with some music that will not leave us heartbroken, sobbing in our potato salad. While we are preparing for the grave robbers and grounded realists who will remind us how twisted we really are, in truth I just want to be in that number this weekend at the Big Party, ‘cause it’s going down.

But that’s another freedom, and we are stuck here as human as humanly possible.  Many of us ain’t got enough money, or health insurance, or freedom. I’m not exactly sure where we get money or Xanax, but we all can get unshackled somewhere, somehow.   Things truly are different.  What do\es our freedom look like now? Interestingly enough, freedom is a resurgent commodity.   Once the precious metal of the black power movement, freedom now extends to being “debt free”.  There is a real lesson in being “free from...”, especially since we spent our first evolution fighting to be “free to…”. Maybe you if free yourself from yourself, you could be a left-handed guitarist.

Hendrix “Freedom”

While this is all good, freedom is almost never free.  And we all have to understand the price of freedom and the responsibility it comes with.  We all want it, we just have to learn it like any new software or handheld with instructions, or the delusional consequences can be life long and torturously painful.   There are current newsy situations to underscore this, stories of the living and deceased. Selling freedom? A well accepted myth.  Buying freedom? How long can we invest in that?  Giving freedom?  Perhaps that’s an option for someone born different than me. 

Taking freedom?  That’s what’s up. I dare you to end your psychological servitude this Independence Day.

VeTalle Fusilier is a producer in Washington, DC. It's pronounced VEE-tal FEW-suh-LEER