Reality it is, Paradise it isn't

Reality is....

"walking the back way to campus -at the back of the queue discussing recent happenings in Nairobi with a colleague from Kenya and a flatmate from Cali.

Black car rolls by. a voice breaks. it is loud. it shatters the solace I thought i found here. It was almost too loud to discern but my spirit has been around long enough to know when its name is called: “NIGGER”. the voice was colorless. An “oh shit” left my body. I looked past the gap-the space between us and the 7 unassuming white Americans that hadn’t let themselves hear anything. 

I grabbed my phone hoping words could reconcile, could recoil my comfort. 

Walking in the present-feeling like the future- the past fell

black and heavy- an anvil. I’m the only one left looney.

It is possible to feel this disoriented even when stars (& stripes) aren’t spinning."

Reality is...

"sitting tipsy - Ghana on your left, Sudan on your right - body a crushed border of understanding. Pain accented in the Queen's English. These girl's know pain better than they know themselves. They will tell you stories. You will feel them in your past. As Ghana quotes Maya Angelou, you will notice that here the cage is just prettier, that black birds always carry the sweetest sorrow, that warm lips and loud laughter always seem to fit better into someone else's joke. You will cry to make room for acceptance. That this university, and all the others like it, are battlegrounds. We learn from the trenches, we must plot our survival, we must be there for each other. Diaspora is more than a people once spread. Unity is more than a nice idea -it is a necessary tactic. "

In Summation...

Paradise ain't nothin' but the reality you make the most out of. This week I was forced to dead my "post-racism" fantasies about London/SOAS and my experience will be richer for it.  I was outside a party, as white girls danced in appropriative orgies of Bhindi's & Afro-Beat,  literally in tears as I listened to two African British first years talk about the racism they've had to deal with in their flat. We moved in less than 2 weeks ago and it's the playful kind of racism that likes to hide itself in liberal arts institutions or in this case "racial banter" completely disassociated from the painful history of colored people existing in the society of their colonizers.  I was also called "Nigger" by a colorless voice in a speeding car on the walk to school a couple days ago. 

It's crazy how present the past can be.

I'm still processing everything.

A Week of Welcomes

My dorm in Dinwiddy House is strikingly reminiscent of last years single in Deroy. After getting our keys, the IFSA gang headed to Argos, an elaborate catalog store that feels like the future. You look through books, check availability, hand the cashier a little slip and wait to be brought everything you've asked for. It was such a lovely minimalist shopping experience. Well worth the troop it took to get their and the pounds spent on the cab ride back.  I prioritized decorating: hung a Ghanaian tapestry & overpriced records from a charity shop up the road in Islington. I have still yet to fully unpack. Clothes are overwhelming and there's not enough drawer space so my suitcase is serving as a clothing reservoir for the time being.

Those first two days were easy enough. Went grocery shopping. Felt grown and responsible. Having a fully functioning kitchen is a new kind of freedom. A freedom my tongue and tummy are grateful for. Imagining meals and creating them, honoring my cravings and saving money-the good life.

"Fresher Welcome Week":  populated halls, free planners, and a full table of events. The first event was listed as a BBQ which ended up being a massive serpent of a queue  wrapped throughout the grounds of the Vernon Square campus/ Paul Robeson post-graduate housing complex. There was one food truck, serviced by 3 people. Frying chicken and grilling up some mushroom/eggplant radish stuff for the vegetarians. I wasn't hungry for anything aside from social interaction but it was difficult to break through such a food-centric arrangement. It was an ideal time for people watching and after standing around for an hour or 2, dancing to 90s dancehall and making conversation with the folks around me i was hungry and hell bent on getting some chicken (breaking my diet because im allergic to eggplant and detest mushrooms). But Chicken ran out, campus closed and I found myself pleading for some eggplant mush before being forced out of the courtyard towards a pub called Bistro.

That night at Bistro was my first successful turn up. SOAS DJs did me right serving up Hip-Hop, Nostalgia and "proper Bashment tunes." I exchanged smiles and dance moves for Facebook adds and plans to be made Jollof by an adorable Ghanaian fresher. Being the only one who can twerk in a pub feels like a super power.

I spent my post-party hours chatting with two recent SOAS graduates about music degrees, campus, and club nights.  

Orientation/Enrollment: The 8:30am hike to Russell Sqaure on a Monday morning was a situation I refused to let myself stress over. I got up. Got out. And Got there- tuning out the anxious power walk of my fellow study abroad students. Once there, we sat in an auditorium for almost 2 hours learning about the days to come and the distinctions of the UK university system. Since I am only here for a term, I will be assessed based on either 1x 4,000 word essay due in January or 2 shorter essays, one mid-term the other in January. 

The next day, I arrived at campus around 2:30 for "formal enrollment" queued up for about an hour, handed over my identification documents & received my library card.

As far as classes are concerned, I have spent the week emailing professors for enrollment approval. Thought I had it all sorted until I discovered some blaring time clashes and overlaps in my personal timetable. Currently sorting it all out. Decided to stop worrying about Brandeis' Anthropology requirements and focus on making the most of this semester. If all goes well I will have Thurs & Friday free for travel and be taking courses on everything from Ethnomusicology to African literature.

Sally Rides....again

"It's the way you believe

That becomes the very thing you see

Take a ride in the sky

It's just calling"

-Janelle Monae, Sally Ride

My last day at work: sipping lemon ginger tea out my "Black is Beautiful" mug, it is Friday the 13th, the last day of my summer internship. The only thing scary is the remaining 3 days I have to turn the semi-sorted stack of clothes in my room into one suitcase ample enough to last 4 months of European adventure.

Tuesday: I leave for my fall semester at the University of London, School of Oriental*& African Studies. I'm anxious and ready. This departure is long overdue. The Brandeis semester started 3 weeks ago and since, I've just felt elsewhere, a phenomenon i'm referring to as "Hometown fever". Not that these weeks have been anything less than pleasurable. I've loved, learned, smiled, slept all while being surround by everything wonderful and familiar. Whats missing is the autonomy and newness that comes with starting a new semester on campus.

But what awaits is newer than anything Brandeis could renovate. A new campus, a new country, a new continent, a new culture. A new context for the study of African diaspora culture and history. As a student at SOAS I will be joining the likes of Super Negro Paul Robeson, Pan-Africanist liberator Kwame Nkrumah, and other notable black scholars (word to Prof. Sundiata). I am literally going to sit at the foot the the throne of Western imperialism to learn of those categorized and commodified in her pursuit of power.

I woke up in JeJu Wellness center, about an hour outside of Atlanta, starring up into a ceiling of amethyst in a jewel encrusted dry sauna. My mantra: I am free, I am open, I am ready.

Wednesday: I arrive. Literally, tumbling (face first) over my luggage on the Heathrow Express platform. Take a taxi to the orientation site check-in and sleep. the next 48 hours are informative. Advisers, former police officers, culture lecturers, funny tasting "insalata". Still free of stress, open to newness, and ready for adventure.

The SOAS crew (8/9 of us) stuck together most of orientation. I am neither the only Brandeisian or the only Woman of color. But being the only "Black AMERICAN" in a group carries a distinct otherness I found myself trying to will away.

I couldn't shake that this city, and all it's beautiful architecture is literally built on the blood of colored peoples. And the Brits themselves (warning: about to make a broad generalization based on our tour guide) embrace their imperial history unabashedly. Maybe it's just part of their dark wit. The National Gallery being full of artifacts they "stole from the weaker and won't give back." The Durbar Room being lavishly decorated with artifact gathered from when "they [we] raped and pillaged India, but it's really quite beautiful." Or maybe since the popular route of denial in regards to such crimes against humanity is unfeasible being that the crimes are vital to their history and understanding of themselves they've accepted their brutal legacy with "typical European arrogance."