Freedom Fighting - Robert Long

What is freedom? When the slaves were emancipated, “freedom” rang throughout the streets of the United States. This “freedom” came at a cost, as most things do, and that cost was blood. Was this liberation really “freedom,” though? When you’re old enough to live alone and away from your guardians, are you faced with “freedom?” When you quit your nine-to-five job in order to pursue a better career, are you truly “free?” Freedom is knowing you’ve overpowered your oppressor. Proper freedom cannot be earned easily, but it always outweighs being restrained. 

What is freedom? Freedom is a feeling of control. When you break away from your parents, you are faced with the opportunities of “freedom.” Living on your own, paying for yourself, and making a living are all great examples of expanding this freedom. That plays a huge role in everything, too: “expanding the freedom.” From my personal experiences, I’ve never been handed freedom. I have learned that freedom is one of those things you have to earn and show that you deserve. This quest for freedom often leads to the discovery of many other feelings and concepts in life, as well. The need for responsibility truly lit my pathway to freedom as I picked up on chores, got a job, and changed my overall behavior. Change was my cost of freedom, but that’s the point: everyone’s freedom is unique with its own cost, but it is never handed down to anyone worthy or deserving of it. 

Freedom is knowing that you make the rules; that you’re in charge. Freedom isn’t something that you are born into or just given, it is earned or taken. As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” As an American, freedom has been the goal to alleviate a multitude of problems I’ve faced. In 1776, our Founding Fathers fought our oppressors just to grant us such “freedom.” Years later in the 1860s, the African American slaves did the same: fought for their “freedom.” Women followed suit just years after that, as well as the African American community, again. The point is, a person’s whole life can be one huge struggle just to achieve freedom. Our Founding Fathers fought for freedom. The slaves fought for freedom. Women fought for freedom. This all ties into my definition of freedom: Freedom must be fought for, especially in order to maintain it. You cannot simply sit back and hope that one day something changes. Freedom isn’t handed to anyone. It isn’t given away. 

When most people think of freedom, they mix in historical experiences, usually leaving out personal ones. When I think of freedom, I immediately think of the obstacles and challenges I’ve been faced with. I never fought a war or trekked through a battlefield, but I did overcome my problems. That leads me to an expansion on my ideas of freedom: the oppressor withholding someone’s freedom isn’t always physical. Although I never broke out of confinement or declared my independence from a governmental tyrant, I did achieve freedom. When my grandmother passed away, I was met with the notorious man himself, Grief. I defeated grief and, through the light, my freedom was born. I didn’t get to sit the bench and pray for the grief to go away, I had to stand up and fight it. With realizations and help from my family, I did such. 

With hundreds of examples of the “Fight for Freedom,” I cannot stress this enough: freedom is the feeling of being in charge; the feeling of releasement. Once you’ve demanded your freedom, you truly understand why freedom isn’t given to just anyone. To earn “freedom,” you’ve got to show that you can handle it and that you deserve it. When the slaves in Haiti felt as if they deserved freedom, they didn’t ask for it or just forget about it, they took action. Sure their actions caused deaths of hundreds of people, but in their eyes, it was equitable payment for what they had been through. It was freedom. The world was built upon the idea that if you really need something, you’ll take it, and I feel no different about freedom.