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."