"As
long as a world exist that oppresses an individual or group's
freedoms, a
world of social injustices, at the realization of those truths
are born activists."
- Anthony Antoine
I have always had a problem with the label activist. Being labeled
activist was the world or someone yet again viewing my natural
fight for basic freedom, my passion for social justice, my effort
to simply be me, as confrontational or militant. It also stands
as a constant reminder of the amount of work still needing done
if I am an activist. For I wouldn't be an activist unless there
existed some things wickedly wrong with the world we live.
How can any of us sit in silence about HIV ending the lives of
Terence, Russell, Willi Smith, and countless other friends, once
and future leaders and do nothing? How can I experience with you
and celebrate your freedom, while you pervasively oppress my own?
Martin Luther King, Jr. profoundly spoke in 1963, "I submit
to you that if a man hasn't discovered something he will die for,
he isn't fit to live." I was five or six and my spirit honored
a simple truth that still permeates my spirit today. If in the
face of oppression of my personal core freedoms, in the face of
social injustices, I said and did nothing, am I even alive? Did
my life ever exist? What would be the point of living?
Now I embrace being an activist. I bathe in its title and hold
tight to an ongoing understanding of what activism truly means.
I seek out the company of activists and thrive on their passion
for life. I am inspired and continually learn by their strength.
In their company, I am now home.
I am mostly home because we share a hope for tomorrow's world
and create that world in our experiences today. We mobilize others
in the struggles by understanding common humanity lends to compassion
and even common vision. We firmly believe the hope for tomorrow,
eventually will be our today. I am mostly home because in a room
full of activists, I am everything I ever wanted to be.
In a room full of activists, I don't wear the title activist.
I am just Anthony.
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