Melanated Gems, do you know communication is key? We as a diaspora are moving into liberation, we can feel it as things intensify, there’s always a little storm before change happens, and we recognize that; but now it’s up to us to communicate. Communication isn’t always what we want to hear, but what we need to hear. If we are expressing our concerns as a community to move forward, we shouldn’t be attacked, or attacking each other. We have become so used to divide and conquer against us as a people, that we continue divide and conquer. Feedback is not always an attack, listening carefully to words used when the person is speaking, did they attack you or did they specifically state their experience. Through dialogue comes understanding.
In the case of history, we as Africans know that colonizers did their best to confuse us and detach us from our history. The point was for us to not know. The point was to rewrite it in a way that favors them, so those of us who may have contradictory knowledge to white’s, should not be dismissed. I have countless examples of lived experiences and passed down actual knowledge, also knowledge that I sought to find by researching and researching, it may not be “first in the google search” but it’s there. I put that in quotes because it’s not just google, it’s books, human accounts, and comparing and contrasting through connecting the dots. I don’t just come up with stuff by reading something once, I evaluate it against other information and draw conclusions based on strong analysis. When I state what I’ve found, someone will send a screenshot of their first google search. The point is, we have to start believing each other and engaging at least in conversation that doesn’t tear down before finding out what the person is trying to say. Divide and conquer knew that the misinformation would cause us even to argue about that, that was the point.
Our narratives are more important than the misinterpretations that were passed down to us. We also have to be real about what we inherently see now that is trendy amongst us, besides all the arguing, what is inherently African culture that is displayed around the world through the continent and all the descendants. There is nothing new under the sun, we have to begin to look to us currently, and historically to debunk myths about us. I always say, westerners will tell us that our African stories are myths, but their misinterpretation of our stories are truth. We have to take back our narratives. That starts with engaging with and believing each other, or at least engaging for understanding. We can walk away with our inherent beliefs, but let’s remain in peace before, during, and after the engagement, do you get? I’ll dive more deep into this topic in upcoming posts.
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