I'm not going to sit here and say (or pretend or postulate) that I'm the first person to 'discover' something when it's new to me. I find that is an annoying habit that a lot of people commit when they are introduced to, or experience, something new to them, when it reality, it has existed for eons upon eons.
So what I will write about is the power of the trip (pilgrimage? return? adventure? spiritual event? I'm still trying to process what I experienced over the past ten days) that I went on to Ghana, Togo, and Benin.
I can sit here and write a book about what happened. And even that book wouldn't do any justice to what I saw, learned, and felt over ten days. I joked on the last day that I felt that I got a degree in ten days. It was so much information to absorb, process, and learn that many a night I couldn't sleep as my brain was on overdrive.
What I will say though that it had a profound effect on my existence and what I knew, and what I thought I knew.
It felt like I was writing notes in the margins in the notebook of my formal education. That I was in 'track changes' and inserting comments on a Word document.
It felt like I was confirming, affirming, discarding, and rejecting information. Simultaneously.
It felt like I was reassuring what I knew about myself, but at the same time growing as a person.
It felt like I finally saw a world with limitless potential. A space that my colour wasn't a barrier to my potential.
And I need to be clear on that last piece.
Some people might say that with a PhD, a book, and growing careers in different fields is a success. And it is. I am successful. I can't argue that.
But at the same time, I feel like this space (this structure) that I/we live in, has placed limits on my/our potential. There is a box that we can't get of.
Whether it be an ideological box, a physical box, a psychological box (mental slavery), a societal box (White Supremacy), it is a box. A box that defines, and limits, our potential.
But as a grown man, and just being in a transformative space for 10 days (yes, just 10 days), has shown me that I/we am/are bigger than this box.
A student in one of my classes asked the question in his research paper about a physical or ideological 'return' to 'Africa' (this is the Year of the Return in Ghana). Should we be promoting a Garvey-esque physical return to the 'Continent' or should it be more in the vein of Negritude or Black Power - us reaffirming our place and power in society through an ideological 'return' to the values of the Continent that is our home.
I say it's both.
I am the first in my family to physically 'return' to the Continent, but I am not the first to have an ideological grounding and pride in our Blackness and our roots.
Standing and slipping in the Slave Dungeons in Cape Coast Castle and St. George's Castle (Elmina), I had to pause for a second:
I could feel the torture, death, rape, starvation, and hopelessness.
I was standing at the centre of the worst of humanity. I was standing in the centre (and on top) of over 400 years of the dead bodies of my own flesh and blood.
It was Hell.
'Heaven' was the church they built right on top of the male dungeon, while Black bodies suffered in the heat of pain and agony in the Hell below.
After an experience like that you would think I would come home full of hate and anger.
But it's been the complete opposite.
I've come home with a sense of calmness and sense of pride.
We, as a people, have gone through Hell (literally and figuratively) and we are still here.
We are the Chosen People.
My ancestors survived a Hell for months (years, decades, centuries) that I found unbearable after five minutes.
Feeling that strength has opened a whole new world of possibilities.
It's never to late to learn and grow.
Look to your past so you can build for your future.
So what I will write about is the power of the trip (pilgrimage? return? adventure? spiritual event? I'm still trying to process what I experienced over the past ten days) that I went on to Ghana, Togo, and Benin.
I can sit here and write a book about what happened. And even that book wouldn't do any justice to what I saw, learned, and felt over ten days. I joked on the last day that I felt that I got a degree in ten days. It was so much information to absorb, process, and learn that many a night I couldn't sleep as my brain was on overdrive.
What I will say though that it had a profound effect on my existence and what I knew, and what I thought I knew.
It felt like I was writing notes in the margins in the notebook of my formal education. That I was in 'track changes' and inserting comments on a Word document.
It felt like I was confirming, affirming, discarding, and rejecting information. Simultaneously.
It felt like I was reassuring what I knew about myself, but at the same time growing as a person.
It felt like I finally saw a world with limitless potential. A space that my colour wasn't a barrier to my potential.
And I need to be clear on that last piece.
Some people might say that with a PhD, a book, and growing careers in different fields is a success. And it is. I am successful. I can't argue that.
But at the same time, I feel like this space (this structure) that I/we live in, has placed limits on my/our potential. There is a box that we can't get of.
Whether it be an ideological box, a physical box, a psychological box (mental slavery), a societal box (White Supremacy), it is a box. A box that defines, and limits, our potential.
But as a grown man, and just being in a transformative space for 10 days (yes, just 10 days), has shown me that I/we am/are bigger than this box.
A student in one of my classes asked the question in his research paper about a physical or ideological 'return' to 'Africa' (this is the Year of the Return in Ghana). Should we be promoting a Garvey-esque physical return to the 'Continent' or should it be more in the vein of Negritude or Black Power - us reaffirming our place and power in society through an ideological 'return' to the values of the Continent that is our home.
I say it's both.
I am the first in my family to physically 'return' to the Continent, but I am not the first to have an ideological grounding and pride in our Blackness and our roots.
Standing and slipping in the Slave Dungeons in Cape Coast Castle and St. George's Castle (Elmina), I had to pause for a second:
I could feel the torture, death, rape, starvation, and hopelessness.
I was standing at the centre of the worst of humanity. I was standing in the centre (and on top) of over 400 years of the dead bodies of my own flesh and blood.
It was Hell.
'Heaven' was the church they built right on top of the male dungeon, while Black bodies suffered in the heat of pain and agony in the Hell below.
After an experience like that you would think I would come home full of hate and anger.
But it's been the complete opposite.
I've come home with a sense of calmness and sense of pride.
We, as a people, have gone through Hell (literally and figuratively) and we are still here.
We are the Chosen People.
My ancestors survived a Hell for months (years, decades, centuries) that I found unbearable after five minutes.
Feeling that strength has opened a whole new world of possibilities.
It's never to late to learn and grow.
Look to your past so you can build for your future.
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