12-29 hrs. | 1.26.4
Dead Prez – Let's Get Free
Don't let 'em get in your head, they try to probe you
Figure your thoughts so they can try and control you
...
It's psychology boy, now what the fuck that make you wanna do?
About three and a half years ago I came to 'America'; today I am still in 'America', with a one-way ticket home on the 27th January, 2004.
Before I explain why I leave the U.S. to go back to Guyana permanently I have to say –
Many people have condemned me for choosing to leave the U.S., this land, according to them, of 'freedom and democracy', 'safety and everything else I could want – a good education, opportunity…' and, most of all, 'money'. So, why would any one want to leave? Why would 19 year old Darrell want to leave when he could have anything ‘he’ wants here in the U.S.?
And they ask it with a mixture of scorn, bewilderment, astonishment, agreement, and fear in their faces.
It’s sad, most of all, to see the fear in their eyes – a fear that is as blatant as the agreement in their voices. Deep inside each Guyanese there must be a yearning to go home – for me that yearning is too overbearing: it is a malignant tumor eating away at my very heart; I think… every day in the U.S. is another 24 hours spent away from home, and I grow tired of my miserable life.
That is not to say I feel no fear; hearing stories of unemployment rates sky-rocketing and crime-waves is enough to deter anyone from going home, however, I rather risk it than stay scared in a nation which treats me no better than the slaves they had for centuries.
I can say that my experiences in the U.S. were some of the most important in my life: from discrimination by the people of the U.S. (even immigrants like myself) to the very police who are supposed to be protecting the people. I also became acquainted with some very friendly individuals of different nationalities (mainly from the Caribbean) whom I grew fairly close to. A fondness of the situation of the people’s of the world is now within me – seeing the struggles of immigrants in the U.S. is one of the most painful sights, even more painful than seeing the few who thrive and never give back to their homeland – a discarded memory of their immortal past. But my bond to my country is beyond everything here in the U.S.
My decision to go back will even force me to tear away from a huge part of my dearly loved family – probably the hardest part of my leaving, otherwise, I have nothing to lose.
Today, I am a youth self-educated and open-eyed – I know what I want and I will get it. You see, my situation is very simple because I don’t have many wants: death to imperialism, death to oppression, death to exploitation all included; either I get my freedom or I die getting it – yes, I am ‘with the terrorist’, I hate George Bush’s freedom – especially the freedom to exploit and oppress me and brown people around the globe – I hate that freedom. The people who discourage me from going back to my homeland are blind – they are cowards, they are the modern ‘Uncle Toms’. They accept their situation as unchangeable, I don’t. I believe in raising my fist, I believe in fighting for my freedom, not buying a ticket out of my own homeland permanently, fleeing my own fight. I believe in fighting for what is mine, not taking a piece of someone else’s. I also believe that we all only have one life to live – and we must live it to suit ourselves – that is our freedom, and we can do it without living at the expense of other people and the environment – I cannot live with my beliefs in the U.S., for doing so contradicts them, and guilt is one of the worst things you can live with.
Living as a slave, also, which most people in the U.S. live as, is no way to live. I believe in the rebellion – I honour the slaves who had risen with anger against the powers and toppled their cruel, iron rule; I take example from them.
Today we don’t have metal chains, however – instead we have mental shackles on our brains. We are brainwashed. We are made to believe in western, conservative freedom.
And where are the questions? Where are the protests? Where are the uprisings? Where is the revolution?
Tell me, how can slave-masters ever define freedom? How can we live like this, with this? How can we accept this situation blindly, or turn a blind eye to it?
Why would the enemy ever give you freedom as an immigrant? Africans have been in the U.S. for hundreds of years slaving away for white people – today, they are still discriminated against and get no justice: white racism.
Some people say that Africans ‘just don’t like to work’, and that’s the reason for their situation. Well, I will tell you, if I was an African man in the U.S. I would probably be poor because I see no benefit and no progress for my people in a white man’s world. I don’t see why Africans should ever work hard for white people – no they don’t work for ‘money’, they work for white people, they pay taxes to white people, and the make progress for the white man. So is there any reason a person should ever work hard under those circumstances? If you ask me what they should do, I would say they should fight for freedom and equality; that is the only thing they should work hard towards – there was Malcolm X, there were the Black Panthers, and now there is Dead Prez whom I support fully. I salute them as fellow soldiers of ‘the fight’. I embrace all revolutionaries, rebels, and freedom-fighters as brothers of mine. Oppressed people need to organize an army!
I will not be one in a white man’s country to work for him, pay him taxes to bomb brown people looking just like me, I will not be here to be tormented my white police or Uncle Toms who think they’re white. I will go back to Guyana and ‘suffer’ for what I want, I will go back to Guyana to fight poverty, I will go back to Guyana to risk getting ‘popped by a bandit’ for my country, and I know that in the end, before I die, if I can still think – I will say to myself: “I died in a fight for my own salvation, my own freedom.” I am not about to die in the U.S. from asthma, cancer, stress, etc. contracted from all the pollutants in U.S. air, soil, water, and food, and the poor, miserable lifestyle of the herds of human cattle roaming the U.S. to work and back every single day – building a nation killing my own people, and scarring the earth. I may be in a bad situation (in the U.S. I am living below the poverty level), however, even if I were to be rich and they supplied me with everything any typical U.S. resident/citizen desired – I would still go back – with nothing.
For different people, there are differing and similar reasons for wanting to go back home to Guyana, but wanting to do so and actually doing so are two completely different issues. For me, leaving the U.S. will be a huge step for me; one that I have to necessarily make. I have to rid myself of the guilt and hypocrisy I feel in myself as a human being and as a Guyanese. I have pledged to myself never to support imperialism, racism, capitalism, exploitation, suppression, oppression, slavery, colonization, theft - I cannot do so as a Guyanese immigrant working in the U.S.: a nation saturated with all things I do not support. You see, for me, life is not about wearing the latest brand name clothing, driving the 'coolest' car or blazing down poverty ridden streets with the most monstrous SUV, or having the 'hottest bitch' in my arms; life is much more to me than the next episode of any sit-complacent show or five-hundred channels on the television set. Life, to me, is about change and achieving goals not only beneficial to yourself, beneficial to the environment (which we and many future generations have to live in), and to others, or at least not at the expense of others: wars waged upon the foundation of lies and propaganda to steal natural wealth, people living in dire poverty because of the greedy few who would stop at nothing to control all the wealth, hospitals which give preference to the rich... Yes, this is the U.S. I know; I have seen it and experienced it: a real ‘first-world’ paradise.
This is not what I want.
Guyana is home. It is my country, my land, my culture, and unlike the many others who have forsaken her to become a U.S. tax payer, supporting their own oppression and the oppression and murder of innocent brown people around the globe, I will return to my homeland to help her in the best way I can. In any society there are always problems, big or seemingly small; there is no perfect society, but I believe that the people who make up any society can strive to make it a better one for all the residents. There cannot be division in any nation struggling to move forward - if a vast majority is moving left, the other is moving right, and the others are moving somewhere else the reality is that there will be no progress, just a waste of energy. Fighting and fuming will not solve the situation unless the fight is against the common obstacle, and right this very moment there are many, both blatantly visible and hidden.
However, all problems living in the U.S. as a Guyanese immigrant aside - I will not encourage or discourage anyone from taking off to the U.S. - because the truth is I have learned a great deal from being in the U.S., and I have learned enough to know that it is time to leave, I know that running is no way to solve a problem. But travel, visit, experience the U.S., but I beg – don’t lie to anyone about the U.S., and that includes yourself; for not everything you are told is true, not everything you see is real, and not everything you expect will come true. Too many Guyanese, ever so often, go back to Guyana for a reason, mainly vacation, and whether consciously or unconsciously give other Guyanese the idea that life in the U.S. is so good, and maybe it is for some, but most immigrants in the U.S. have to struggle from pay-check to pay-check to simply sustain a living; people of African descent brought to the U.S. because lazy white people wanted easy labour still live in poverty onto this day.
There are certain events which necessarily have to come to pass before certain things change. We all know that there is no action without reaction, and the present status quo of Guyana is not going to change without effective action. The government will proceed with its plans and actions, crime and poverty will thrive, and Guyana will get worse. It is up to us, the people to take action against the obstacles of our progress, no one will do it for us. Depending on the government to solve our problem shows lack of knowledge or understanding that they are the enemy. You don’t ask the man that is secretly boxing you behind the head to help you find or stop the person boxing you behind the head. Realise – the government is the enemy, we need to stop their reign of corruption and govern ourselves.
Think about it. Don’t just say ‘No way – I in goin’ back deh!’; don’t just make negative and exaggerated comments because you are too scared to live in your own country, think about what you can do to make change. Don’t say ‘Guyana will never change’, or ‘Guyana only getting worse.’ Think about a real reason why people should ever have to leave their own homeland and take up residence in a place which not only is not theirs, but treats them like second and third class residents because of their colour and accent. Why should you have to leave your own homeland to settle for a subservient, immigrant life in the U.S.? Is there a good enough reason to run from someone taking advantage of you?
Slaves rebel, oppressed people rebel. We are an oppressed people – the government is taking advantage of us and forcing us out of our own home. Well I say ‘NO’ – it is time to stand up for our rights, our homeland, and all that we, the Guyanese people – the very essence of Guyana, deserve.
The way I see things, there are only two choices you can make as a Guyanese: either you choose to be a slave or take the path of the freedom-fighter. And the path of the freedom fighting Guyanese requires him/her to be in Guyana. Each Guyanese needs to become aware and active in the fight for their country; we need to organize and create change.
See you on the frontline my brethren – the battle will begin -
Let the system malfunction with us. |
