If you won two free plane tickets, where would you go?
I’d like to go to Ghana. Everyone I know who’s been there claims it’s like going home. I’m thinking about the similarities in language, food, and culture. I’ve been to Jamaica several times, and I’ve felt a sense of belonging visiting my mum’s family home, school and church.
The diaspora has separated me from a relationship with Africa, the Kente cloth would help me to see the pride and sense of identity linked to its culture. The 400 year West African tradition links the Ashanti and Ewe tribe.
I want to go to Elmina’s Castle to see the ‘Door of No Return’. I’m not sure why, I think it would help me to understand more about my family. I’ve watched ‘Roots’, Tewlve Years a Slave’ and ‘D’Jango Unchained’. It would give me a sense of what life would be like without the brutal separation. I want my daughter to be able to say, ‘Everyone looks like me!’ Rather than being stared at like an alien in Europe.
I watched 3 exciting programs this week (Summer holiday catch up), which made me want to visit Ghana first ‘Dreaming While Black’. Loved the series it dealt with so many ‘microaggressions’ in the workplace with humour and accuracy – felt like reliving some of those painful moments. The Ally McBeal style of playing two versions of events when you feel like speaking your mind or swallowing hard and pretending you’re unaffected. The story focused on family life. There were some stereotypes, but I tell myself some are based on truth.
The second was a film ‘Rye Lane it had a brilliant backdrop of South London. I loved this film, a simple love story with no violence or trauma. Loved the opening boy crying in toilets about break up.
The final show was ‘Blackface’, a deep exploration of the beginning of Blackface in the UK. Disturbing language used throughout as David Harewood and David Olusuga dig through the archives. It was interesting to see that iconic figures in Hollywood, such as Judy Garland, Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire in Blackface that was eventually edited out for Saturday afternoon consumption.
Sometimes you want to be somewhere where you can just be.
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