Home Away from Home: What Black History Month Means

Many insist that we dwell on the inspiring aspects of Black History Month and I do agree. However, to carry this theme forward I would like to invite you to imagine what images the word ‘celebration’ brings to your mind. The word ‘celebration’ itself conjures images of joys over sorrows, strength over weakness, living in spite of dying, doing and undoing, breakthroughs in spite of resistance, forging ahead through the crucible, remembering through healing, unity over chaos, rhythms of hope in spite of how far there is to go. And since light is relevant only because there is darkness, any meaningful celebration also needs some backdrop for proper interpretation. And as one historian pointed out, slavery, our colonial past, among other challenges are actually an African Diasporan success story because we found ways to survive, to preserve our culture, and our families. And on these echoes of celebration, I would attend to the first question I would like to address today …

Why do you think it is important to Celebrate Black History Month?

Black History month is important because it celebrates the three Hs: our History, our Heritage, and our Honour. Our history dates back to the very beginning of Human history being the first people to establish the blueprint for civilisation, back in Cush, Egypt and Phut. It is important to tell our own history and making the true African history accessible to a wider audience. And that it remains a vehicle of transformation and change, a useful concept, not just for people of African descent, but for all victims of stereotyping, its relevance not simply reduced to one more school assignment that has limited meaning for children.

In celebrating our Heritage, we acknowledge the diversity within the African and the African diaspora community in terms of culture, faith, and experiences. It is important to delineate our own heritage to inform and correct diluted narratives. It is important that symbols of this heritage make it into Canadian cultural repositories as well as the preservation of black historic sites, as much of it remains unidentified, or un-acknowledged.

We celebrate Honour by recounting the sacrifices of our forebears, the accomplishments of the present generation and laying a foundation of progress for future generations.

Black History Month is also the Remembrance Month for people of African descent everywhere. We remember the tears and sufferings of those who were sold into slavery; we remember the perpetrators both sides of the Atlantic; we remember their tenacity and accomplishments despite their challenges; we remember their contributions to the world. We remember not to repeat past mistakes. We remember never again to allow another race to subjugate us.

What Does Black History Month Mean to You?

It is kind of a paradox: It’s like “leaving home by staying home and staying home by leaving home.” It’s a science and art of self preservation and self-sacrifice mingling together. How do you self- preserve and still self sacrifice? They cancel each other out and there will be nothing left, if one insists on looking at it on the surface. I live because I die. If you die you cannot be living. And yet this is the very heart of what Black History Month means, it thrives on because it died. This is the experience of people of African descent.

Black History Month celebration has become the magnet that pulls Africa and the African Diaspora into dialoguing and conversations about their place in the human family, a much-needed platform.

It means a time of reflection on our journey as a community. A time to celebrate. A time to reconnect. It is a time to take stock. It’s like an annual general meeting or annual report for all afro-descendants.

Why do you think it is important to have these dialogues?

As stated by Lonnie Bunch, “You can tell a great deal about a people by what they deem important enough to remember, to create moments for — what they put in their museum and what they celebrate; and that we learn even more about a community by what it chooses to forget — its mistakes, its disappointments, and its embarrassments…” Moreover, “the great diversity within the African Diaspora community needs the glue of the past to remind us of not just how far we have traveled but lo, how far there is to go.”

Though all Afro-descendants are one, we are a diversity of cultures shaped by various geopolitical forces. These geopolitical forces of imperialism and colonialism recast the core features of international order. An international order established to benefit the raider, the oppressor, and the exploiter.

Imperialism and colonialism established the processes of industrialisation, rational state building (rational only for the West), and ideologies of progress (Buzan and Lawson, 2013). And these processes destabilized the African continent and governance structures and birthed a new kind of organised violence invented by the architects of Western civilisation not the average ones struggling to make ends meet. This new kind of organised violence needed a social construct for justification: racism. Racism was a multi-layered crucible. And depending on which Western Community the Africans found themselves they were sifted through the coercive practices of slavery, indentured labor, and the plantation system (Gilroy 1993). The experiences of Diasporan Africans converged to forge novel ways of responding to injustice and oppression, creative ways of thriving economically and socially along with unique leadership structures.

The Africans on the continent were sifted through colonialism and apartheid and berlinized (the berlin Conference) – that is, “partitioning of Africa, establishing rules to amicably divide resources among the Western countries at the expense of the African people,” and after independence clandestinely signed them on to an unfair trade system to keep them economically poor and paralysed. The experiences of the Africans on the continent also converged to forge novel ways of responding to injustice and oppression, creative ways of thriving economically and socially along with unique leadership structures.

The interconnection of these experiences and responses is what our dialoguing is about, (that is, dialoguing between the African Diaspora and the Africans on the continent) a communal return to the source of community unity to delineate more purposefully the meaning of our existence. Dialogues among people of African descent have the power of threading our stories, knowledge, and experiences to achieve clarity of our past, and enforce our present to carve a sustainable future.

How do you react to the question, where are you from?

This question can be right or wrong depending on the motive as Canada is a multicultural country. Unfortunately, oftentimes it is to disinherit someone of their Canadian heritage. And here

ignorance is usually the culprit. And sometimes arrogance feeds it. That’s why on a positive note it is important to share about how Blacks contributed and shaped the foundations of Canada as a country and Alberta as a province to uncover the volume of stories, histories and truths that lay buried because of racist structures. It is important that these voices are validated especially in the education curriculum which will require commitment from all levels of government.

Conclusion
In conclusion Black History Month is a prophetic voice in our chaotic world to reincarnate, if possible, Truth, with a new set of vocabulary and appreciation of life, providing the guard rails we need to correct the mistakes we make as we move forward as humans. It reminds every community that there is hope to be realised, peace to be pursued, equality and equity to effect, and harmony to be harnessed.

Here's a poem that captures the feeling of being Home away from Home.

IMMIGRANT
That you packed bag and baggage and came, You have done well.

That you did not just come just to scout but to settle, You have done well.

That you did not just come to settle but to contribute, You have done well.

That you did not just contribute but in contributing you found you And you found me,

you have done well.
That in finding you and finding me, We defined a country.

You have done well.
Your accent accentuated our communication. It infused it in shades of rich hues.

From the snowy caps of the Rockies, Through the bogs of the boreal,

To the living skies of the prairies,
Over the sprawling swaths of the Great Lakes, Up to the glacial guardians of the Artic.

You have gained more leverage leaving than staying. You have gained more leverage holding up than caving in You are not an abject immigrant.

You are not an abject native! Anyekoo. You respond: Yaa ee!

By Flora Trebi-Ollennu