We are both on the same chain

Certain quotes just grab your attention and hold you. Most of mine are from the incomparable Toni Morrison. 

She had a way with words: she sewed words together in a quilt that would embrace you, let the words cook up a meal that would sustain you, or ferment words into something strong we needed to drink down for our own healing. The quote below is no exception.

Mother Morrison said 

"If you're going to hold someone down, you're going to have to hold on by the other end of the chain. You are confined by your own repression."

Those words have stuck with me since I read them. 

It made me think of the labor it takes to oppress.

It takes work. 

It takes effort. 

But what those who choose to oppress do not realize is that it also takes ensnaring themselves in order to oppress. The chain you place on others you yourself must hold onto. "You're going to have to hold on by the other end of that chain.", as Morrison says. 

Meaning that we are BOTH on this chain. But only one of us is clear that we are trapped. 

Oppression keeps us all stuck, those who are oppressed AND those who choose to oppress. The only difference is one lives under the lie of “freedom”, of safety, of security, and thus must continue to lie to justify being oppressors. 

We are all still stuck on the same chain.

But what would happen if we let it go? How much more truly free could we all be? We wouldn’t have the labor of fighting to be free or fighting to keep others bound. 

We could all be liberated.

We could ALL be liberated.