I Am Home and in a New World
I’m a young African lady, born and bred in Africa, and the leader of RC young adults in Accra, Ghana. Restimulating, liberating, exhilarating, emancipating, invigorating, manumitting [free], and life-giving—these are words that describe the Black Liberation and Community Building Workshop (BLCD) 2020. And they are the words that best describe my mood after my first BLCD. I feel like I am a new person. I am home and in a new world. I have begun healing from the damage done to me by racism (both internal and external). I can breathe again! Wow! What a welcome! BLCD 2020 was simply extraordinary!
Imagine my excitement when I entered the BLCD Village and saw a room full of beautiful, intelligent, wise, and strong people with same skin colour as mine. Almost all the leaders proudly wore their African hair and African outfits. Hearing my brothers and sisters interpret the meetings into different African languages was liberating. I was super-excited!
Realizing that they have tried to hurt me because they themselves have been hurt in the past makes me understand the whole situation better. They feel inferior, and so they try to make me feel the same; they feel hurt, and so they try to hurt me.
The oppressors have stolen my language and have tried to steal my pride as an African woman. I am constantly told that I am not enough, that my skin colour is ugly, that everything black is bad. I hear “black market,” “blacklist,” “black eye,” “black devil,” “black heart,” “black magic,” “black sheep,” “blackmail.” The list goes on. I am Black, and hearing that everything black is bad has made me look down on myself and feel inferior and downgraded—yes, that was the feeling I had before joining BLCD 2020.
I now know the truth, that I am more than enough. I am now seeing a new world where I get to be me, a better leader for myself and devoid of the confusion, lies, hurt, and distresses around me.
Accra, Ghana
(Present Time 201, October 2020)