Folks,

I have to be honest….

I told myself (and many around me) that I’ll be updating this blog with my volunteer exploits, events and insights into my personal journey to; KOS – Knowledge Of Self.  My goal was to inspire everyone to be as passionate and excited as I am about volunteerism, event planning, fundraising, philanthropy, while staying up-to-date with the latest news about Grenada, my heart.

Sadly, I have completely left my site of inspiration to unoriginal content in order to keep the website alive BUT I promise I have a good reason . . .

My life is slowly getting out of hand (in the most organized way possible, of course!). With juggling two (2) upcoming events, other writing commitments (other than this blog), Grenada’s independence celebrations in Toronto, Spice Youth Toronto restructuring and my journey of constant self-improvement doesn’t quite leave a gal time to write as much as I would like to.

Never-mind that, though, I wanted to share this particular experience with you. Last Saturday, I along with a few other individuals traveled to the Charles H. Wright museum of African American History in Detroit, the largest of its kind in North America.

This trip was life-altering; the curators of the museum did an amazing job in documenting the story of our history. With life-sized replicas of historic scenes, realistic sound effects, detailed reflections, historical facts.

It is difficult to articulate how being able to walk through a replica of the belly of the ship, dank and dusty complete with white washed walls, echoing wooden floors, rows of life-sized slaves; men, women and children, accompanied by the sounds of crashing waves and women wailing impacted me. I felt it deep in my gut and often found myself fighting back tears, those in themselves a combination of anger and compassion.

It impressed upon me how much we as a people have suffered, 300 years of the most deplorable conditions known to man perpetuated by other men who sold to us false visions of a new life.

Exhibit after exhibit chronicled our sufferings; from beatings, to lynching and segregation and in modern day exclusion.

By the time we were halfway through the displays, I felt like I was suffocating, drowning, it was so heavy, dark, depressing and rife with the stench of human wickedness and greed.

Just when it got to the point where I thought I could take no more, it hit me…there are always two sides to every story and by extension, two ways to look at this depiction of our colorful (for lack of a better word) past. We can look at it from the perspective of the underdog or we can chose to look at it from a perspective as survivors.

I chose the latter, and once I did; I was able to look at the exhibits with new eyes. No longer was I seeing a people that were subjugated but rather I saw a people who have and continues to endure and adapt, turning adversity into creative means of survival. I marveled at our women who learned to create a feast from a morsel; who birthed, protected, nurtured and molded our children in the face of grave danger. Our men, though traumatized, humiliated, resisted attempts to break their spirits and went on to speak out about inequalities and eventually, to lead the most powerful nation on earth, the United States of America.

Now if that isn’t a history to be proud of and to sing from the roof tops (much like the Jews do), I don’t know what is. Unfortunately, our school a system, particularly in North America tends to, if at all, tell the story from the side of the hunter.

But this is where the role of the parent and community becomes crucial as a source of knowledge for your children. It is time for us to rewrite the story from a position of power and survival, to tell the story from the position of the lion NOT the hunter.

I will stop here, but one last thing. I keep coming back to this African proverb ‘Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunters’ .

We MUST do our part to tell OUR STORY in OUR VOICE.

**Special thanks to Curtis States, friend and guide for this experience.***