I have been wondering why there are so many movies and stories out right now about slavery and people of Afrikan descent as underclass. What does that mean? What is the message that media is feeding us? This isn’t a comment about the productions, actors or the script of these movies. To be honest I haven’t seen any of them.
Show me a story that we have created about our great history as kings and queens, or world travelers or any of the many other fabulous things our Afrikan people have and still are doing and I’ll go in a heart beat. This portion of “ourstory” is richer, deeper, and frankly thousands of years longer. This is the story we need to know to counter the continued repetition of “you are a slave” story.
But I have no interest in hearing more Hollywood’s (or any other wood’s) dramatized version of this history of our enslavement. Don’t get me wrong, I do believe it is very important for us to be clear about this history. I just don’t want to it filtered through the eyes of those who continue to benefit from that history and have an interest in the continuation of the oppression of our people. As far as I am concerned, there must be some sort of agenda.
I chose the name Food For The Soul for this site because while FOOD is the largest part of what I talk about here, there is more that feeds us as Afrikan people than just what we put in our mouths. What we put in or allow in our mind is also very important. The words we use, and the messages we hear about who we are have a powerful impact on us.
So here is some verbal Food For The Soul. It is a spoken word piece done by Vern Braithwaite from Halifax Nova Scotia. The piece is long but I encourage you to watch the whole thing. When you are finished, please comment below. What feelings came up for you? How do you feel about the “slave” movies? For members you can also comment in the forums here. (You must be logged in to view or post in the forums.)
You can find the text of the poem here. http://hrsbstaff.ednet.ns.ca/jbout/vernpoem.htm
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…And still we rise.
Indeed we do.
Powerful message!
It’s amazing what that change in terminology does to the telling of that period in our history.