WHEN ARE WE going to stop using colour and or slavery as a benchmark and or an anchor in this country? When are we going to stop telling people they are still bound by “mental slavery”? People who say that only want to control you. Let them know that you are not bound by slavery or their perception of you. Say to them, “I was born with vast amounts of flexible intelligence and I am determined to use it, thank you very much.”
So many of us, more than likely thousands, have so called “white folks, black folks” or some Caucasian relative in our ancestry, yet we seem to be uno-centred. We are who we are and or who we should be – people of the Caribbean. And we also have smaller percentages of – Indian, Chinese, Syrian, Portuguese and other ancestors – than other countries in the region. So what?
I am sure, as with a number of other people, I have had the experience of walking on a street in some city only to realise that I was the only “black” person in sight. So what? I am human as any other with my soul made in the image of the Creator and so are you.
As a country we celebrate our freedoms some of which we still have but some which we lost. In the past over many decades anyone felt free and relatively safe to walk the highways and by-ways day or night. Not anymore. Store owners were free to display their goods in show windows and we could truly window shop. Not anymore.
We have freedom to attend the church, mosque, temple or gathering point of our choice and to worship, usually the same highest source, whom we are to free to call by the name of our choice. The same being who we proclaim is love but somehow is also one of anger, jealousy, destruction and many other (in) human qualities. Strange! But we have been given free will.
There are countless examples one might give to show that we are either in a free or un-free state. Yet one must remember to thank the Creator for the refreshing rain, breezes and the warm sunshine; for the plants that give us food, for the trees and flowers, for the bees who serve us diligently without compensation, for all the people who work joyfully or not so joyfully.
We are free, each of us to define our place in the world, just as we are to discover for ourselves and live to ourselves if freedom is or isn’t.
I ask you to proclaim and live that – freedom is yours – and you will allow others to proclaim that it is theirs as well.
— Michael Rudder
