Musings on Freedom: Go and take what is yours

I’ve got an Akan tribal tattoo...well, I have a few. No, this isn’t a confession. Yes, this is, however, going to be a declaration.

The tattoo looks like the graphic above. And it translates to “Fawohodie” in the Akan language Twi and means “go and take what is yours.” 

Adinkra.org states that this adinkra is a “symbol of independence, freedom, emancipation,” and it comes ”from the expression: Fawodhodie ene obre na enam. Literal translation: "Independence comes with its responsibilities." This definition is as stated in Cloth As Metaphor by G.F. Kojo Arthur.”

I don’t want to turn this into a cultural anthropology class, but I do want to make sure that you are hearing what I’m typing. These symbols were usually worn by royalty or spiritual leaders and adorned everything from walls to cloth - I won’t get too into the weeds here. Still, written history seems to indicate that these symbols date back to the early 1800s when colonizers first noticed them. I want to be as transparent as some plastic wrap - we The Akan Peoples - know it is much much older, and there are authentic artifacts that date back further, and there are indigenous writers who have articulated this. But we all know history can become transfigured into fantastical narratives that remove self-actualization. But I’m on a far-reaching tangent here, which I will address when I relaunch my passion project Native Storytelling later this summer. 

Now, back to the regularly scheduled programming. This adinkra means “go and take what is yours,” and it is the symbolic manifestation of freedom. 

I need someone’s black southern gospel choir to start singing me a hymn, cause I am ready to testify. 

I want that to sit for a second. Let it marinate like juicy mushroom oysters on the grill (I’m a herbivore y’all, so work with my analogies). Freedom, y’all. That, there is yours, it’s mine, it’s ours. One is not free until we are all free. Let’s yell it louder for the #alllivesmatter folks in the back. 

When I decided to mark up my body in a manner that my parents wouldn’t approve of, I wanted to make sure that whatever I got was worth bleeding for...because blood conjures both life and death, and I want to always believe genuinely in what my body art stands for. Since getting this symbol five years ago, I have sat on the delicate precipice of gratitude and rage; joy and fear. I am so grateful for those who came before me, whose lives were given in the name of liberty. I’m an immigrant and a proud American. We came here (USA) because we believed in what this nation stood for, and we knew that on these shores, we would find opportunity. The transgressions of the people who fought for “liberty and justice for all” are not unacknowledged by me; not, is the injustice of those who were forced into bondage and who’s courage and never wavering will to survive has granted me the privilege of being their descendant. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about independence lately. Frankly, I’ve always thought about it. I was one of those kids who always wanted to be a grown-up because of autonomy. I loved the idea of being able to make choices and having the ability to “do what I wanted.”

The Fourth of July just passed, and I spent a lot of the holiday weekend in solitude and meditation; thinking about how freedom is more perception than reality for many people. How what we think of as free is nothing but a mirage on the horizon, which we have fixed our gaze. And yet, we have such a long history of people in this country, and many others, fighting for freedom. 

So, why do I think that we are not entirely free? Well, Fredrick Douglas says it’s better than I ever will in What to the Slave is the 4th of July? 

But his words echo a painful truth and one that my tattoo (which I have placed on my inner right wrist) reminds me of every. damn. day. It’s the fist I raise to the heavens when I hear chants of freedom and it’s a part of the hand that I hold over my heart for a national anthem. 

It is not lost on me that I am both an indigenous native person and the great great great great granddaughter of enslaved people from the West Indies. People who took their newfound freedom and found their way back to their ancestral lands. That is a complicated and burdensome legacy that I wear within that symbol on my wrist. 

Freedom is a right and a responsibility. Once you are free, you must, under all circumstances fight for and uphold the freedom of others — not sometimes, not when it’s convenient for you, but always and especially when they don’t worship like you, look like you, or love like you — always, even if they are different from you. 

We are tethered in this life together, whether we want to be or not, so my limited freedom will soon be yours. Liberty sits on this fragile scale that, when not weighted correctly, will topple the whole measurement over. 

What I love the most about my fawohodie tattoo is that when you look at it sideways, it looks like a butterfly. The story of metamorphosis is one that becomes idealized so quickly that its deeper meaning is rarely ruminated upon. I wrote a meditation on this once that I will share with you all later this week. (Someone be a to-do list and remind me.)

First, let’s discuss how painful it is to break your body down, to dissolve into a pool of nothingness that somehow grows into the very definition of infinite beauty—what a bittersweet transformation, what a radical evolution. And when you look at the symbol right side up, it looks like a stool, like the golden seat of the Ashanti Kings - a very physical and literal “seat at the table” and throne of justice. I love the gravitas that both allegories bring to the symbol. I want you to come back and re-read this part: Freedom is flight, it is space — it is the flexibility to sit down or stand up and take off! 

There are many people in the world, but especially these United States who are grappling with conflicting truths, who are watching thousands go into the streets to demand freedom for themselves and others.

Who risk jobs, friends, and loved ones because they know that it is time to have courage in their bones and kindness in their soul.

Who are at odds within themselves and are challenging their long-held truths and who are having to learn the elusive art of surrender and deep listening. They are transforming into people who possess the sort of boldness that has you waking up uncomfortable, that has you going to sleep preoccupied. The kind of conviction that gets underneath your skin and sits in that space between body, mind, and soul. To all of you who are expanding, I encourage you to sit in that place of discomfort… stay there until you can look to your neighbors, and you can whisper into their spirit the message of liberation: “go, and take what is yours.” And to those of you who are yearning to be boundless, to shake the shackles of fear and oppression and silent suffering off, I say: “take your freedom, it is already yours.”