#BlackInAmsterdamAdventures (Day 11)

 ... A Day of Reflection and Deep Thinking... As I approach the final day of my time here in Amsterdam, I just had to sit and think back to how INSPIRING, Motivating, and Informative this trip has been. Never in a million years would I have thought I would be here in Amsterdam. This trip has been spiritual, emotional, physically taxing, and just what I needed to push through these #PhDChronicles !! The knowledge that I have gained and acquired is beyond words. Also being here lets me further know that the struggle for #BlackLife remains and the fight is global! However knowing that others are taking up the baton assures me that freedom and liberation can be within reach and not to give up. I am very grateful for this Black Europe Summer School opportunity, so that this young girl from small town Champaign, IL can look back and say "You doing your thing, and keep on doing it!! Travel the world, soak up the culture, and remember to pay it forward !! "

                                      

#BlackInAmsterdamAdventures (Day 10)

(Top L-R A 'Keti Koto' scarf that sums up the festival/celebration, Welcome Sign to "Oosterpark" where the National Slave Monument is housed, Bottom L-R One of the elders paying homage to the ancestors that came before by the pouring of libations, Parade of women, men, and children with the 'broken shackles', statue at the National Slave Monument)

Today July 1st a special day in Surinamese and the Dutch Antilles history as it is the Keti Koto festival! "Keti Koti," a Surinamese term, which means "Broken Shackles...the chains are cut" It symbolizes the abolition of slavery on July 1, 1863 in the former colonies of Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles and thus the end of an extreme dark period in Dutch history. (Although slavery was abolished by the Netherlands in Suriname and the Dutch Antilles in 1863, enslaved persons in Suriname would not be fully free until 1873, after a mandatory 10 year transition period during which time they were required to work on the plantations for minimal pay and without state sanctioned torture.

So one may ask why celebrate (this is a no brainer though) Keti Koto? It is essential to celebrate, to offer a time of reflection on the past and look ahead toward the future, celebrate freedom, equality and solidarity. In essence, when one has an enhanced knowledge of the past, it is easier to have a deeper understanding of what is needed to prepare for the future. Thus the day began with a Commemoration Breakfast where broke bread with family, friends, allies, etc. as we discussed "what it means to be free?" and "how does freedom feel in the midst of the struggles?" During and after I realized how the struggles of Blacks in the US is very much the same here in the Netherlands. We must continue to fight in order for us to really be free mind, body, and soul. Now, shortly after we would walk over together to Oosterpark for the national commemoration held in the Monument Dutch Slavery and Heritage. During the ceremony we heard remarks student activists, representatives of the Cabinet, the Ministers Plenipotentiary of Curaçao, St. Maarten and Aruba, the Ambassadors of Suriname, Ghana and South Africa and the Mayor of Amsterdam.

Now folks that know me, know that I do not celebrate the 4th of July (it's not my holiday, and at the time my ancestors were not even free, but that's another story/post) so celebrating the Keti Koto festival really resonated with me, because I felt a sense of belonging knowing that this was a true celebration of Emancipation! Although there is much work to be done in the Netherlands as it pertains to freedom and the eradication of racism (i.e. Zwarte Piet), there have been many victories. The struggle for liberation for Black people reaches far beyond our homes and communities, it is a global predicament! I am just grateful and fortunate to be able to have this opportunity to witness and take part in a celebration that is a shared experience.

#BlackInAmsterdamAdventures (Commercial Break)

These Surinamese elders blessed my soul this morning as we prepared to take part in this year's Keti Koto Festival!! Hearing their voices reminded me so much of my home church in Atlanta!! The connection runs deep folks!! Love my Black people!! 

#BlackInAmsterdamAdventure (Commercial Break)

This Sista right here is Amazing to the 20th power!! Jennifer Tosch has been a great source of information, talent, and energy while being here in Amsterdam!! Her fearless spirit is quite inspiring! And you know I had to get a pic with her dressed in traditional Surinamese (Angisa/headscarf & Koto/dress) garb from head to toe, before going to the Keti Koto Festival!! Oh and if you are ever in Amsterdam you must take her Black Amsterdam Heritage tour and her special Black Presence in Art tour at the National Rijks Museum!! All smiles!!

Myself with the "Official Surinamese Ambassador" Jennifer Tosch

#BlackInAmsterdamAdventures (Day 9)

...Nothing like the bond of Black Woman Sisterhood across the pond. Let me just tell you, I was given new life today at today's International Symposium on Black Europe. UMASS-Amherst Gender and Women Studies professor Dr. Tanisha C. Ford exemplified what I seek as a budding scholar and professor. Dr. Ford presentation on "Creating an 'Eclectic Archive' New Directions in Cultural History brought awareness to this notion of radical blackness by pushing aesthetic boundaries. In essence we witnessed how blackness travels and is circulated through this triangle of US/United Kingdom/South Africa. Her work sheds light on this idea of 'Soul Style' and how Black women across the globe interrogate oppressions of race, class, and gender across the diaspora through various cultural aspects and aesthetics (hair, fashion, music, print magazine. etc.) of the civil rights movement. I would learn about how Black women adopted a way of dressing that essentially acknowledges the people they are fighting for; the pipeline bridge (using Black models) between the US & South Africa with the distribution of the DRUM magazine; and the popularity of the Grandassa models (based out of Harlem) in the Nigerian magazine 'Flamingo'. Via each of these aspects there is this sense of what Ford calls this cycle of 'pleasure-violence-innovation' (a pleasure of embracing your African roots, at the same time being attacked for this embracing, and then finally using certain fashion adornments as a site of class formation). Now although Ford's focus is/was centered in Brixton, United Kingdom and South Africa I saw a lot of threads with my current and future work with regards to the Black female body. The Black (female) body is an amazing site of study when it is given fair justice. All in all, I look forward to Ford's text "Liberated Threads: Black Women, Style, and the Global Politics of Soul".

Thus, just when I thought I had a firm grasp of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements another layer of knowledge is added (and this is a GREAT thing by the way!). So as someone who is beginning to embrace this idea of being a Black Cultural Studies scholar, I realize how many dimensions ones work can go and how it can still be ground-breaking, creative, and innovative. Therefore, being able to map Blackness in alternative ways that resonates with me and my work offers another route of interpretation that I look forward to providing!

(Top L-R Grandassa model Brenda Deaver; a group shot of the Grandassa models in Nigeria; Bottom L-R Dr. Tanisha C. Ford giving her presentation on "Creating an 'Eclectic Archive'..."; The cover of Ford's upcoming book; and myself pictured with Dr. Ford)

#BlackInAmsterdamAdventures (Day 8)

Today's lesson focused on the Educational curriculums, disparities and hierarchies within Black European culture, specifically in the Netherlands and Portugal. This was a day that I really had to reflect on my educational background starting from Pre-K to present day Grad school. I truly value not only what I got from the many great teachers that I had, but also the supplemental academic enrichment that I obtained from programs like Upward Bound College Prep Academy, Principal Scholars, & Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate program, among others. So on today I realized how critical it is to have a firm foundation of history. I can remember the many days I would come home from school telling my mama and grandma how we didn't really learn about people of color (particularly Black folks), even as I child I was inquiring about people that looked like me! Also realizing that Blacks people were so much more than enslaved individuals, but revolutionaries, kings & queens, high ranking officials, inventors, and so much more. This is the connection that I saw with schools here in Europe. As I have already discussed in posts from last week race is constantly made to not exist or downplayed as if it is not relevant. What one will find over here is how rampant Eurocentric ideologies & narratives of whiteness are perpetuated in history and taught to children of color (i.e. Afro-Dutch, Surinamese, Dutch Antillies, Turks, & Moroccans). Now it's bad over in the U.S. but it is taken to another level over here. Imagine Black children having to be forced to learn under Christian principles, but their Muslim; or not having any mention to slavery or Africans being seen as enslaved (remember the enslaved were seen as economic wealth); or having to be critiqued daily about the order and cleanliness of your homework; or worse having to take part & witness your white Dutch classmates (sometimes Black ones too) dress in blackface to 'honor' the notorious Zwarte Piet (or risk being fined/and or humiliated for not participating). All I could do was just shake my head. The ugliness of 'white privilege' in the classroom is helluva drug. #PhDChronicles

#BlackInAmsterdamAdventures (Day 7)

Got an opportunity to visit the National Rijks Museum on today and boy was this an enlightening experience. Now the museum as whole is known as the Dutch National Art Museum. For all my art folks it houses some of the most well known art pieces from Frans Hals to Rembrandt's "The Night Watch". But what is not discussed, yet very visible is the Black presence in many of these pieces. It's not surprising the Blacks in the Netherlands have existed as more than just servants and enslaved persons, but also high ranking officials and dignitaries. What's unfortunate is how Blacks are either eroticized and made hyper visible or rendered invisible with no acknowledgement whatsoever. Take for example the picture on the bottom right, it is quite clear that there is a young Black child placed in the center. Yet the museum curator among others did not even realize his presence in the painting when asked who is the Black child?? hmmm... And then the other three pictures show Blacks as either Revolutionaries and/or dignitaries (i.e. one of the Kings bringing gold to 'baby Jesus' and Christophe Le Moor the right hand of the Dutch King at the time). So I find it very hard to disregard Blacks in Europe and to simply see them as economic wealth. ... And these pics are just a small taste of what is there, it's quite a handful. If I have learned nothing else since I've been here, it's to have even more pride of what my ancestors across the ocean did to survive and take positions of power despite the consequences! The courage and tenacity is quite amazing even if others do not recognize it.