How Can We Be Free

You would have to be blind to believe in equality while Nelson Mandela rots in a prison cell: How Can We Be Free opens with this doubt about his own community. In the book The Rose That Grew from Concrete, the poem appears in the fourth section, which is named after Liberty Needs Glasses and gathers Tupac’s most political writing. It is sometimes listed as How Can We Free.

Von Howard Beach bis zum Fluch auf die Freiheitsstatue

Following the doubt about his community come examples from the US. Tupac mentions Howard Beach in Queens, where in December 1986, 23-year-old Michael Griffith was struck and killed by a car while fleeing an attack by white youths. He laments that young Black people, as soon as they reach the age of 18, join the army in droves, and that nobody stands by them when police officers harass them.

In the end, the speaker expects to be called a racist. His answer consists of three names: George Jackson, who was shot and killed at San Quentin prison in 1971, Huey P. Newton, and Geronimo Pratt, Tupac’s godfather, who was still in prison at the time. Finally, he curses the Statue of Liberty.

Wahrscheinlich vor Februar 1990 entstanden

The poem bears no fixed date. Because it describes Mandela as a prisoner, there is good reason to believe it was written before his release in February 1990, though that is not certain. Huey P. Newton is also mentioned without any reference to his death in August 1989, which likewise does not allow for a definitive dating.

Eine direkte Linie zu „2Pacalypse Now“

Thematically, a direct line leads to Liberty Needs Glasses, where the Statue of Liberty again appears blind, and to Fallen Star for Newton. In his music, Tupac carried this anger forward onto 2Pacalypse Now (1991), for instance in Trapped about police violence.

The introduction provides an overview of the entire book and all the poems.