Dreaming Together for a Future where we are Alive

In my existence, there were a few times I attended protests and saw a sea of people. For victims who fit the 'perfect' image (university graduate, acceptable complexion, social class, race, geographic location), streets overflew with protesters. I saw no tweets suggesting people stayed at home. Maybe this was a result of collective mourning and solidarity because bad things should never happen to ‘good' people. But as a black queer woman, such a narrative is hard to swallow because to someone, I am not good.

Lately, I’ve reflected on what it means to dream, to radically imagine a rise up that is just and does not need public buy-in for it to make sense. To dream and rise up as a collective, we have to acknowledge our internal biases, the ones we inherit by blood but also the ones we learn along the way. We have to willingly seek liberation not just for ourselves but for all of our people who traverse this earth unknowing to them that there is a future where they are actually alive.

But how do we all dream the same thing? How do we discover that our liberation is in fact collective and if we somehow manage to escape the confinements of these oppressive systems it is just an illusion? The whole of us is not palatable to the rawness of oppression. We must rise up and dream of a future where we are able to exist as our whole selves without violence.

My dream is for the streets to be belly-bursting with people, armed with their voices and hope for a different future. And if you’re not in the street, you are dreaming too. Dreaming and hope are all we have in the world that is bound to kill us all.