Selective Outrage

When I criticize a system, they think I criticize them — and that is of course because they fully accept the system and identify themselves with it.                                                            Thomas Merton

Some people’s loss of freedom feels more egregious to me. It’s partly because those are the ones of which I am aware, but it’s mostly that these prisoners are being detained for fighting for our freedom. Our freedom.

Who knows how many political prisoners there are in the world? My outrage selects a system that claims to be better than it is, as in “land of the free.”

It is said that freedom is not free. Freedom for some, however, appears to come at the price of the loss of freedom for others. But, as Maya Angelou said, “The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free.”

People like Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier have spent their adult lives in prison. They are treated like anything but the esteemed elders that they are. Paris, France, named Abu-Jamal a citizen of their city, and they have named a boulevard for him. Meanwhile, it seems most people in the US don’t even know who he is.

None of us is free until all of us are free

Let us not forget J. Edgar Hoover’s war against Black bodies. In truth, the “War on Drugs” became Hoover’s policy before the term arose in popular parlance. The 20th century saw the criminalization of cannabis, so now thousands of households currently suffer the immoral imprisonment of a dear one for possessing a substance that enriches other primarily white citizens.

I conclude with a prayer from Lakota Chief Arvol Looking Horse,

On behalf of all O’yate, I ask Tunkashila for Leonard Peltier to be set free, for him to enjoy his freedom once again. I call on each of you, individually and personally, with every breath you take, to never cease in your efforts to free Leonard Peltier. Return him to us! I, Horse Man, speak these words from my heart, from Paha Sapa, the heart of everything that is—praying for the return of our sacred lands, which have also suffered at the hands of our oppressors. May peace be with you all.