“When I liberate myself, I liberate others. If you don’t speak out ain’t nobody going to speak out for you.”
As we begin Black History Month I was reminded of this quote by Fannie Lou Hamer as I reflected on its relevance in my life and to recent events. For me, liberation means “learning how to learn” so that I can continually develop my critical thinking and communication skills. Unfortunately, it took me a long time to arrive at this conclusion.
In high school and for most of my undergraduate degree, I was a mediocre student. I focused my attention on pursuing sports, social activities and anything else that would keep me from my studies. It was not that I was a bad student—I could easily get good grades when I applied myself. I simply did not see a future where I could envision myself as a “professional” of any kind.
Fast forward to my undergraduate years and not much changed, with one exception—I got into some trouble. Suddenly, I was threatened with the possibility that my future—whatever it could hold—will now hold much less of it.
With the help of my family, friends and the amazing multicultural team at the Student Academic Success Center (SASC) at CU Boulder, I was able to finally see the internalized barriers I had constructed in my own mind (a “double consciousness” of sorts, if you will) and tear them down.
Some of these barriers included beliefs that I did not belong in college because I was not smart enough, not wealthy enough, and did not share the same background as many of my peers. Thanks to my support network I was able to address these barriers by learning to ask the right critical questions (why do I feel this way, what is causing it, and how can I address it?), reflect on them while exercising, and sharing these vulnerable thoughts with others. In this way not only was I helping to overcome my own barriers to success, but oftentimes discovering that sharing these thoughts with my peers helped us both to overcome these barriers together.
With those limitations out of the way I quickly began to see that education was the fastest way to liberate myself and help spread the word to others experiencing the struggle I endured.
Thinking about this today, I am mindful that not everyone has had the same privilege I experienced in overcoming such challenges. Many people in America do not have a large family to support them, the resources of a research university, or receive the implicit benefit that comes with being viewed as a part of a dominant social group, whether you identify that way or not (i.e. white, English speaking and able-bodied). Without a combination of these things coming to my aid, I would not be writing this today.
So how can I use my own liberation to liberate others? For starters, I can share my path and use the knowledge I have obtained to speak out when attempts are made to limit that path for others.
Recently, the U.S. Senate failed to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. This bill would have more or less kept the spirit of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and required states that attempted to pass voter suppression laws be put on a federal preclearance list before an election. To deny someone the right to vote is the first step in marginalizing them from public life so that their voice does not interfere when school curriculums omit histories of racism and sexism, school districts shutter facilities for marginalized groups and resources are allocated without consideration for the deep inequities that exist in our education system.
Obviously, this issue extends to many other subjects as well. However, for me, education is the first topic I think about given that, in the 19 states who have enacted voter suppression laws, statewide changes to teaching curriculums tend to soon follow. As journalist Ronald Brownstein noted in his investigation of these laws, “Voting laws are intended to reconfigure the composition of today’s electorate; the teaching bans aim to shape the attitudes of tomorrow’s.”
The teaching bans that follow voter suppression laws attempt to shape the attitudes of students, who will become future voters, by denying them access to the same critical thinking tools and educational experiences I had in liberating my own mind.
States like Virginia and Florida have banned curriculums involving Critical Race Theory (CRT) because they believe that CRT teaches students how to critically engage with their own mental barriers and the barriers baked into our legal, educational and social systems that help to keep them marginalized. In other words, CRT threatens the traditional power structures in these states by shining a light on the mechanisms used to keep traditional minority groups out of politics.
If you feel your education helped to liberate you then now is the time to speak out and start a conversation about the importance of voting rights and education. There are a number of ways to do so: conduct and submit research on these topics to academic journals, respond to the policies you disagree with by writing a letter to the Clarion and other newspapers, and demand to know where your elected leaders stand on these issues when you have the chance (DU’s upcoming Denver Democracy Summit is a great opportunity to do so!).
If you don’t speak out now, there’s a growing chance somebody else may soon do so for you.
