Find your place in the movement

When hip-hop artist T-Dubb-O gets on stage, it’s like he was born there. The stage is where he proclaims his truth in verse as he makes eye contact with each and every fan and he tells us, “I don’t want a Trap Queen/I’d rather have a Coretta.”

T-Dubb-O is one of the leaders of Hands Up United, a collective of politically engaged minds building toward the liberation of oppressed Black, Brown and poor people through education, art, civil disobedience, advocacy and agriculture. He came to my class last spring to speak, in an effort to mobilize students who live far away from his hometown of St. Louis, Mo., the center of the new Civil Rights Movement. I was also able to meet him again on a Breakout trip, a weeklong trip during fall break during which students engage with domestic social issues by meeting and working with local community leaders.

The Hands Up United team is fiery, smart and young (one of their leaders is 16 years old). Its methods of organizing are rooted in past liberation movements — it runs a Books & Breakfast program similar to that of the Black Panthers — while constantly creating new standards of mobilization for the #BlackLivesMatter movement that is more reflective of a digital era. The team taught us many lessons to share with fellow students, but the most prominent lesson was also surprisingly simple: each and every person has a place within the movement.

The reasoning? Liberation is tied together. As long as Dalits are oppressed in India, as long as Palestinians are forced to live under occupation in the West Bank, as long as Black women and men walk in fear of the police, we are all oppressed. Because, at the end of the day, American liberation is tied to global liberation. Beyond the fiscal system that knots together our economies, or the political system that binds together our world leaders, or the technologies that make the world seem quite small, there is a more human reason to believe that we all are connected.

If this feels far away, let me put liberation in a Princeton lens: as long as 1 in 4 women experience sexual misconduct at Princeton, as long as African students see their cultures appropriated by a group recognized by the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students, as long as low-income students are harassed by other students, we are all oppressed. As long as our intentions are anything less than respect, we are all oppressed.

There are certainly deep differences in forms of oppression. Police brutality and microaggressions clearly will not impact people the same way, but they are both forms of oppression. Some forms of oppression are more continuous, more unrelenting and more immediate. Some are subtler, piercing away at an individual over time. But the point is not to rate oppression on a sliding scale, ranking which ones are the worst and pushing the rest aside. Instead, we should remember and celebrate the unity of humanity in resisting all its forms.

St. Louis is a unique online casino place, where racialized segregation and violence has a particular past and present. However, the point is that wherever you are, whoever you are, you must imagine a better world, too. It is not just enough to focus on the places that are experiencing the worst forms of conflict or oppression. Every place has an opportunity for improvement. It is up to us to locate and correct it; it is up to us to find our place and take it.

But how does one find one’s place in the movement? The leadership team at Hands Up United had different answers to this question. Hands Up United Director Tara Thompson suggested traveling, if you can. By traveling, one can recognize the parallels in both systems of oppression and methods of liberation across city, state or country borders. Co-founder Tory wants us to reflect on where you might be most effective, “on the streets, or in the seats,” he called it, referring to participating in either protesting or politics. Director Rika Tyler urged us to analyze our solidarity in finding ways to help your own community, and in doing so, help hers.

Some people make music, some people write, some people shout in the streets, and some people lead from their seats. As a white person, my place is not at the front. But there are a million other places in every movement — so get behind leaders you believe in. Today is your legacy for tomorrow’s human rights.

Azza Cohen is a history major from Highland Park, Ill. She can be reached at accohen@princeton.edu.