Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom Than Slavery (1995)
In Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom Than Slavery (1995), Pamela Sneed navigates the historical tensions and political legacies of slavery. Sneed references Audre Lorde, Assata Shakur, and Harriet Tubman to historically resuscitate their important contributions to social activism. Across this temporal journey, Sneed retraces her lost identity as a black woman, while also commenting on the contemporary politics of race, gender, and sexuality. She tackles the tensions between freedom and slavery in the Post-Civil Rights era by explicating upon the psychological impact of colonial, patriarchal, and capitalist structures. By confronting these past issues, Sneed recovers her identity while moving toward a state of personal liberation.
PAMELA SNEED is a poet and a performer based in New York City. Her work explores the personal as political while commenting on race, history, and feminism. She is the author of Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom Than Slavery (1998), KONG (2009), Lincoln (2014), and Sweet Dreams (2018). Sneed has performed original works for sold out houses at Lincoln Center, PS122, Dixon Place, BAMcafé, and Central Park Summer Stage, among other venues. She has been featured in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Time Out, BOMB Magazine, VIBE, and New York Magazine. Sneed has taught at Sarah Lawrence College, Long Island University, and Columbia University.