Can Black Freedom Spaces Exist in America? The importance of the Fearless Fund trial
"Struggle is a never-ending process. Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it in every generation.” - Coretta Scott King
Over the years, I have never been fully comfortable in silence. It has always been alarming to my psyche. I assume this inclination for sound comes from being raised in busy, urban communities filled with Black people. For a Black sound connoisseur such as myself, the weekend is the peak and always brimming with movement. Immediately the sounds of the many New York City communities I grew up in come to mind- music of community gatherings, the honks from passing vehicles, conversations outside on porches or steps, active playgrounds and sidewalks spilling over with fast-talking and fast-moving people.
I have yet to step into the communities that strangers describe in their monologues- reducing our neighborhoods to monolithic entities of grief, violence, trauma and poverty. Instead, there is that familiar knowing and physical ease that encapsulates my body as I enter spaces with a mixture of hip-hop, R&B and gospel music reverberating at the corner, cars speeding by with the occasional honking, sirens temporarily drowning out every voice, shouts from neighbors from windows and balconies to passerby and friends.
This is the time we reconnect with our communities and find some moments to just be who we are- these are the homes where we can breathe,
This is Black Freedom Space, a space for escape where we can find restoration from our constant grind of being ourselves in unsafe places and experiences that attempt to devalue us. At times, these spaces are actual brick-and-mortar spaces, but most often, they are groups created to support those on a similar journey, experience, or demographic.
When Black people create these spaces to commune & collaborate, it becomes a rare testimony of Blackness unfiltered, undiluted and unapologetic.
Given what I know about the Fearless Fund, I believe it is a Black Freedom Space. Their mission is to support Black people in building a vision. In this space, they would get respite through receiving the funding they need, the understanding that they desired and the mentorship that they craved. As a Black entrepreneur, if I was a Fearless Fund recipient, I believe I would have felt instantly at home. When we gather in these spaces, it is impossible not to see vivid reflections of our brothers, sisters, parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents and instantly feel connected.
This active pursuit to destroy Black freedom spaces brings anguish but no surprise. This action is not new, it actually is the norm. Destruction of the Black communities we create, literally & figuratively, occurred during the slave trade, Reconstruction, desegregation, the Civil Rights movement, the Black Panther movement, the Black Lives Matter movement and even now, with the rise of White supremacist (terrorist) ideologies and judicial actions.
The commonality between all this destruction is how quickly it happens and the loss that ensues. This can include loss of rights, loss of life or even loss of our path. Then it is followed by silence. It is always the silence that unnerves me. The joy of Black people convening together in our spaces of freedom gets disrupted so abruptly with our bodies inundated with more trauma, pain, grief, and anger that we must quickly compartmentalize.
The hope is that the fabric of these small communities we create is violently ripped into pieces and discarded, leaving us confused about how to put everything back together.
Attempts to destroy Black freedom spaces like The Fearless Fund always unleash so many questions- “Why now?” Why us?”, “Haven’t you taken enough?” and “Why do you need to take our peace, as well?”.
Much of our trauma as a people occurs when Whiteness sees our spaces. White supremacy wants domination of our knowledge, silence of our voices, and suppression of our actions by any means necessary. This is the same mandate that is demanded for how Black people exist in schools, in workplaces, while driving, while running, at the gas station. Neighborhoods, towns and cities that allow us to be ourselves, will always be highly policed and threatened to ensure silence. submission and stagnation.
We have had to endure our entire neighborhoods being stripped of basic resources, disinvested and then devalued. In many of our communities, we have been relegated to under-resourced schools, food deserts, suboptimal hospitals, abandoned homes and unrepaired roads. This most recent trauma is now attacking our enterprises, stripping them of the money that they rarely are given so they don’t grow.