Freedom is expressing your identity without being marginalized. Freedom is necessary, without it, we live lives in fear trying to accommodate the status quo.

Growing up, I could rarely find a doll or a character on TV that looked like me.  This planted and nurtured seeds of self-hatred. I begged my mother to let me straighten my kinky curls for years.  Eventually she caved and allowed me to get a perm, which caused me to lose my hair.  Thankfully, we stopped the treatment, still I was trapped in society’s margins set around me.

In 6th grade, I laughed and joked with my friends in P.E., and our gym teacher walked over to me and reminded me of something I’d heard often, “You should learn to control yourself, men don’t like loud women. They’ll use them, but they don’t want them”. I trapped myself in silence, but that only lasted a few days. Freedom means being accepted for who I am and not being limited by others’ opinions based on gender.

One fight I’ll possibly never be done fighting is one that has raged my entire life about my skin color. I’ve always been labeled as ‘dark’ and joked about, even by friends, “I can’t see you in the dark” and “dark-skinned girls aren’t cute”.  In response, I taught myself not to dream too big or expect too much; that there were only so many plausible things I could do.  Freedom means not having to fight battles to not feel less than others.

Is America the “Land Of The Free”?  Our attitudes contradict the name. We cater to white people, view predominantly European features as the epitome of beauty, and white supremacy thrives off the idea that white is good, everything else is bad (Gillborn, 2006). We stereotype men as powerful, intelligent, and above anything even slightly perceived as feminine. We’re taught a woman should cater to a man and do anything to make him happy (Peterson, A & Guitar, 2015). Young girls of color are rarely represented in a positive light by television, news media and movies, and abusive habits are normalized (Coard, Breland, & Raskin, 2001). 

We must abolish prejudice, gender role bias, and any thought that one group is more powerful, competent, or in any way better than another.  What freedom means to me is dissolving  margins and encouraging every race, gender, and person to dream big. 

References
Coard, S. I., Breland, A. M., & Raskin, P. (2001). Perceptions of and preferences for skin color, black racial identity, and self-esteem among African Americans. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 31(11), 2256-2274. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.2001.tb00174.x

Gillborn, D. (2006). Rethinking white supremacy: Who counts in ‘WhiteWorld’.Ethnicities, 6(3), 318-340. doi:10.1177/1468796806068323

Peterson, A & Guitar, A., Empowering Women: The Next Step in Human Evolution? Evol Psychol December 2015 13: 1474704915604540, first published on October 9, 2015 doi:10.1177/1474704915604540