Libète oswa lanmò: The language of protest

By Zyheim Bell

Eden Lewis, a senior English major, put it best, “an activist is someone who feels compelled to act.”

A physical response to the injustices of the world around them, forces activists to speak out and to fight against it. For an activist, it goes against their nature to standby while the world around them suffers.

I am not an activist, but I come from people who defied and rebelled against the systems set in place to hold them back — to be Black is to stand in resistance.

“Libète oswa lanmò.” Liberty or death. It is the decree of the Haitian people, a testament to the strength and resilience of the people. They rebelled and made it known they would choose death over servitude, that they would fight before ever allowing themselves to be returned to bondage.

I have grown complacent and feel as if I have shamed my people; I stifle the pit in my stomach and hold back the words that want to escape my mouth. This defies every part of me screaming that there is something wrong in the world.

I have lost the language of protest, the voice that used to compel me to stand up for not just myself, but those around me. I have grown tired of speaking up and advocating to a world that does not want to hear.

However, students like Itunu Adebayo, a double major in criminal justice and psychology, reminded me of the voice I lost. Adebayo shared she does not allow the lack of response from the world to shut her down. Instead, she advocates in spite of the world and holds her anger, reminding herself that it is real and justified.

Adebayo speaks power into her communities and to those around her. She protests by being loud, being heard and not allowing anyone to label who she is.

Protest does not have to be large. You do not have to topple the government, you do not have to rally thousands of people and you do not have to be the most outspoken person.

As Adebayo put it, protesting is using your voice in the small ways you can: posting on social media, attending a peaceful rally or sit-in and even talking to your loved ones. 

Lewis said protesting can be as simple as community engagement, taking a dollar and donating to a crowdfund or GoFundMe.

Protest is self-advocacy, in a world where shame is a tool used by those who wish to oppress. 

Protest is love in a world where who you love has become political. 

Protest is empowering those around you, looking beyond yourself in a capitalist society focused on the individual.

Lewis said that anger is what we should be feeling.

I am angry with myself and the world. When I open my phone to headlines of death in Gaza, Sudan, Congo and right here in America, it enrages me — a visceral anger that makes my body shake, a heat so raw it burns in my stomach. Yet, I have not spoken out against it.

Brutality is just as much of a language as protest. A dark whisper of jealousy and hate, the act of dehumanization and subjugation. Brutality is beyond just the physical brute force, it is the installation of shame, it is the social death as you make someone’s identity a target, the words that sow hatred and anger into the hearts of the people around you. It is legislation and privilege. Money and corruption. It is the American way.

Brutality is a language that trumps protest, not because of raw strength but the shame it instills within those who act against it.

Dehumanization, to reduce one to that of an animal, is the goal of brutality; to leave one a hollow shell of themselves and carve out a new identity for them.

A fellow Rider student, who opted not to be named in this piece, stated that “the biggest act of defiance that you can do is living out loud.” 

Brutality trumps protest when we condemn the actions of the oppressed and when we tell the oppressed to meet their oppressor with love and open arms, while violence tears through their communities.

How do we decide when someone has a “right” to violence? To what extent does brutality warrant violence?

Adebayo said, “Violence wouldn’t be necessary in a society that believed in justice.”

This is not a call to violence though, nor is it a decree for everyone to take up arms and become an activist.

Zora Neale Hurston, a Harlem Renaissance writer is famously quoted, “If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.” 

That is what this is about. Speak up and speak out.

Zyheim Bell is a senior journalism major