“Freedom where are you? Because I need you” : this is what Beyonce hammers home in this song that brings America back to its starting point, to its foundations: slavery, which some would like to forget, minimize… Donald Trump for example. In a speech last June, the Republican candidate claims that George Washington “probably never had slaves”. Yes, yes, George Washington, the first president of the United States, had slaves. He had them from the age of 11, he still had 123 the day he died, I visited his property which has become a museum near Washington, it is fully documented.
In July, Donald Trump was also surprised: according to him, in this campaign Kamala Harris suddenly became Black. No! The Democratic candidate, born to an Indian mother and a Black father, has always considered herself a Black woman, she has always claimed it, she is proud of it and “Freedom” is there to remind us of it.
This song by Beyonce is a song of struggle that has already been heard during demonstrations in the United States.
Four years ago in Minneapolis, George Floyd, a black man was killed by a white police officer. In the wake of this, the Black Lives Matter Movement spread throughout America and among the songs taken up at the rallies: “Freedom” precisely. In taking hold of it, Kamala Harris declared to African Americans – whose vote would be crucial in November: “II know! Even though segregation has not existed on paper for 60 years in the United States, I know that the fight for civil rights is not over.”.
This fight comes to him from childhood.
Where did little Kamala grow up in the 60s? In Oakland, California, just a few blocks from the Black Panthers’ headquarters. Her parents, activists, do not hesitate to take her to demonstrations. Here is a story that the vice president loves to remember as here on NBC: “I was in my stroller, my mother always told this anecdote: one day when I complained she asked me “Kamala what do you want?” and I answered: “FREEDOM”!”
“Freedom” this concept would therefore be squarely written in the DNA of Kamala Harris! What other song than that of Beyonce could have better defined her! Americans are definitely the champions of story telling…the Democratic candidate still doesn’t have a program, she’s criticized enough…. Okay, but she has a story.
