Pam Speaks

This is the amazing Pam Sneed breaking it down.
Have a GREAT Christmas to EVERYONE if I don't get to you before...
farvel,
the lab

p.s.
I woke up this morning and realize that I have a bit to say about this piece. A couple of years ago I got invited to a dinner by a friend of mine who spends a lot of time in Ghana. She wanted to get a group of women together whom she felt would really inspire each other. There was a former colleague of mine, and another woman whom she had worked with previously.
Aesthetically, the table at this restaurant worked: We were all relatively educated women, self-assured, a bit older and visually, culturally inclusive.
We decided to eat at a Ghanaian restaurant and as we waited for our food the most curious conversation came up. I don't remember how it happened, and I admit that my memory is not the best but this is how I experienced it.
Basically, I had my friend who spends a lot of time in Ghana say how many of her friends from Ghana don't understand why African Americans journey to Ghana to see the vestiges of where many of our ancestors perished and were pushed through, out in to the world, against their will. I felt a shudder in my soul.
My friend who said this, is white. She is someone I feel like I can really talk to--I don't mean perfunctory talk, but talk talk--break things down kind of talk. Ordinarily I don't think I would have responded like this if it was just us, because we would have talked about it like any other discourse-- but we were in the presence of two women I did not know: Another white woman and a woman, although half-Black, who did not identify as Black. That's another story.
I suddenly felt as if I was being provoked. I felt that the comment was an odd thing to say, when put into the context in which I had found myself being confronted by this statement.
I replied that if these people had known what had happened there, they would not make such a comment. Then the conversation shifted to the exclusion of whites at these sites--a comment again that made my soul shudder. The half-Black woman who does not identify herself as Black said, "My mother is white and I feel she should be allowed to go there if she wants to."
Now, I am not for warding places inaccessible to folks and such, but I did suggest that if I was white, I hoped that I would have enough respect for history to at least give people the privacy needed to heal: without the gaze.
The evening was not good. I won't even waste my time to explain how the level of conversation degenerated from there (as if it could!) but it really made me feel very sad because let's face it, here in Denmark, most folks don't see things from my perspective. I'm not mad, no one told me to have a kid with a Danish guy, no one told me to move here, I know, I know and I know this conversation is not surprising to those of you who know.
But, well, this is the space I'm in. I'm raising a brown child in a predominantly white country. I'm committed to many of the tenets of Pan-Africanism. I'm trying desperately to remain in touch with others', not least of all my own, humanity. I'm starting a new job in a few weeks. I need to find an apartment. I'm totally into my son's hamster, Sneaky. I miss New York. I need to clean my apartment. There There. There There.
farvel,
the lab

pps
While the media makes light of the whole Iraqi journalist show incident, he is being tortured severely, and has, according to his brother, been made to sign statements alleging cooperation with certain groups, and another statement that he had not thrown his shoe for the honor of the Iraqi people.