Having personally experienced that gut wrenching smell of terror and horror
Contrasted with the most beautiful, scenic view beyond its walls,
I reflect on how, after feeling all the feels in my very bones,
And connecting all the connects in my very soul,
Hearing the inaudible voices and invisible beings crying out,
How do I ignore the truth of my history?
How do I beautify such a dark story to soothe the white man’s conscience?
How do I not educate my little black boys and girls of their history of endurance, survival, tenacity and resilience?
How do I not educate my little brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews about the ancestries on whose backs they stand, the ancestries who refused to die so that they can live?
How do I not inform the mass of the existence of such a dark history, the atrocities brought about by others, so that this awareness becomes a campaign cry of never again?
Where does accountability begin?
Why force a people, the same people who bear the brunt of this atrocity to denounce it, to pretend it never happened and to applaud the colonial masters for all the good they did for us instead?
In this new form of shackles, slavery by another name, takes on a new form and a new life.
For to teach the white man’s version is to teach that as a people we have no past, no history, and without colonialism we would not be, without colonialism, we would not have thrived, without colonialism we are not a people.
From wholesome lives to dehumanization. From homes to dungeons.
From the dungeons to the door of no return.
From the door of no return to the middle passage.
From the middle passage to worlds unknown.
From worlds unknown to lost identity.
From lost identity to generational trauma. From generational trauma to resistance, to strength, to survival, to here.
You dehumanized us, we found the courage to rehumanize ourselves,
You destroyed our culture, we recreated the old into the new,
You brought us darkness, we found light instead,
You took us to lands unknown, we forged new environments,
You delineated our identity, we rose up anew,
You tried to crush our spirits, we used that very spirit to keep you alarmed,
You tried to stifle our will, we made a way.
You thought you conquered us, unimaginably, we remain unconquered.
We are not who you told us were,
We are not who you broke us to be
We are the souls that live with,
Our. ancestors. wildest. dreams,
Carol Dixon, Academic Coach K-8 , North Broward Academy of Excellence, North Lauderdale, Florida