‪#‎BlackInAmsterdamAdventures‬ (Day 1)

‪#‎Day1‬ of ‪#‎BlackInAmsterdamAdventures‬ ... Thanks for tuning to my travel adventures. I hope to share some stories and things learned while here in Amsterdam. And of course there will be pictures!! So in today's lecture we were setting up the groundwork of "theorizing Black Europe". We began discussing the complexities of race within the European context, the importance of race relations, this idea of the "stranger" within, and progressive control of white Europeans towards Black European. We also began tackling citizenship and decolonization (which many equate to self-determination), this was especially intriguing as I began making linkages to my own work. And finally, we discussed the European Union as a contested project. Today I really engaged with the material and quickly saw the connections of how blackness translates across borders. ... Now on another note the food here is actually pretty good. As we speak I'm sipping on this nice tasty ginger beer, sitting in this vegan cafe, listening to some Gregory Porter, and reading about access to the Netherlands of enslaved and free Black Africans. I gotta real good feeling about these two weeks! ‪#‎PhDChronicles‬ ‪#‎TravelNoire‬‪#‎BlacksInTheDiaspora‬