We have decided some brain quirks are disorders (and get accommodations, as is compassionate), whilst others are flaws (and get slurs). But no one picks their hardware. You cannot earn a better prefrontal cortex or deserve a calmer amygdala. Nor does one get to pick the environment they are born in, which will inform their choices later in life. Even the capacity to "learn better" is a roll of the dice, some brains start the race with sprinting shoes, others with lead weights.

So when we call someone stupid, lazy or insane we are not describing a choice, but simply announcing which kinds of unlucky we’ve decided are worthy of scorn.

Liberation isn’t just an event, it’s a story we tell each other to remember it’s possible. A war might topple a regime, a law might grant rights, but if no one sees it, if it doesn’t ripple through the collective imagination, it’s just a tree falling in the forest of history. The real work isn’t the act itself; it’s the echo. Without witnesses, even victory is just a footnote. And in the age of algorithms, if the echo doesn’t go viral, did the tree ever make a sound?

How do we even know what liberation is if not for the drumbeat that announces it through the ages.