Community Outreach Strategist, Tyra Patterson
At the heart of our work at OJPC is a commitment to amplifying the voices and stories of those most impacted by the criminal legal system. We do this to remind our communities, our neighbors, and those in power that every person deserves to be seen in their full humanity, dignity, and power.
Recently, our Community Outreach Strategist, Tyra Patterson was invited to speak at the American Jewish Committee’s 32nd Annual Community Intergroup Seder. Tyra was asked to share her reflections on freedom, a theme that speaks deeply to her personal story and to OJPC’s mission of building a more just and compassionate criminal legal system in Ohio. We are honored to share her remarks from the event.
Recent events in this country have caused me to reconsider what it means to be free in this world. In 2017, I walked out of prison after serving 23 years for crimes that I did not commit. What I understand freedom to be today is much different than what I understood it to be just 7 short years ago.
There is a higher calling to freedom. It’s not simply a state of being. It’s where we also take an active role in protecting and defending the ability for others to be their full selves, so long as that doesn’t infringe on anyone else’s rights.
All the movements for freedom are connected. Whether you are fighting for rights as a gay person, a trans person, a person of color, a woman, an economically poor person, a justice-impacted person, an immigrant, or an indigenous person, it’s the same fight.
I’m not here to be political, but I read the news, and I get so tired of people labeling other people “illegal”. No one is illegal, regardless of your feelings about what’s happening at the borders of the United States. We are all people and deserve humanity.
Besides, I don’t understand who gets to call people illegal when ALL of us are on stolen land. But that’s another talk for another day.
As we think about the symbols of oppression and the struggle for civil rights in this country, it’s never been about bathrooms, and it’s never been about water fountains. It’s always been about fear and control.
But you want to know what is not a competition? Civil and human rights. So many people have bought into this narrative we have to play the struggle olympics.
What are the struggle olympics? I’m glad you asked. It’s when different groups feel like their struggles are more important than other groups.
I’m sure you have heard this. But rights are not pie. Equal rights for me, don’t mean less rights for you. Let me tell you that if you say you love freedom, but you don’t support my right to be free, it isn’t actually freedom that you love. You love your privilege.
At the root of Passover is mercy, resilience, social justice and redemption. Although no one among us has the power to declare that any one human is deserving of redemption, we all have the ability to keep one another lifted. And when someone stumbles, we can make the conscious decision to humanize and affirm them with our actions and our words.
I am happy to build community with all of you today. We can’t just be in safe spaces. Our current times call on you to be in brave spaces as well.
I’ll leave you with a quote from Audre Lorde, “I am not free while any woman is unfree. Even if her shackles are very different from my own…”