Creating community through travel

I think the biggest question I had for myself was:

“Why am I doing this?”

Back in April 2019 (“The Year of Return”), I had an exceptionally transformative experience in Ghana, Togo, and Benin. I was the first in my family to “return” to the African Continent, first in 2011 while I was doing research in Tanzania, but more importantly in 2019 when I set foot on the Cape Coast, were my ancestors were (presumably) deracinated and shipped to Barbados.

From the moment that I stepped foot in the male (en)slave dungeon, under the church that was built to define centuries of dehumanized hell, I have been haunted.

I have been haunted (blessed?) by the ghosts (spirits? energy? life force?) of those that died – and survived – to get me where I am today.

You can argue, in a complex and convoluted way, this was my “come to Jesus” moment.

Did I return?

Or…

Did I begin?

April 2019 was my baptism. It was not my birth. I was born in Canada. Of Barbadian parents. But the moment I stepped out of that male (en)slave(d) dungeon, I was born again. I started to begin my journey of truly emancipating myself from mental slavery. From truly understanding that I was more than my (curse) of Blackness. To seeing that Christopher Stuart Taylor did not have limits on who we was, nor who he can become.

It was a new beginning.

And it wasn’t just my beginning.

I decided that I wanted to bring young Black students from the Diaspora, many of whom have never been to the Continent and only know their Blackness within the white supremacist confines of dehumanization and enslavement.

But the realities of structural inequalities (*ahem* – barriers created by white supremacy) set in and that initial plan drifted away like a coconut caught in the undertow of the Atlantic.

The vision was dying.

The vision was lost.

The vision was reimagined.

Did I want to bring white people on this spiritual journey of Black (re)affirmation?

No.

I’ll be the first to stand on the pulpit from Sunday to Monday and preach that whiteness defines the world that I – and we – live in. I wanted to create a space that was for us.

Black people.

I wanted 7 days and 6 nights of Black solidarity. Us walking through the shadows of the valley of death (literally and figuratively) in the factories of dehumanization in Ghana. I wanted to connect with their spirits. I wanted to feel that energy of despair, followed by the euphoria of the prospects of hope, resilience, and strength.

Cocaine is a hell of a drug. But losing the “de” in “de-humanization” was the greatest high in my life.

I wanted to share in the embodiment of the Adinkra symbols.

I wanted to share in the moment to fill that emptiness that we Black folk in the Americas have, but have no idea what is missing. Or how to fill it.

That was lost.

Was I skeptical about this group of 11 that included 5 white folks?

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t.

I was too caught up in the pre-trip logistics to think too much about it. I was more concerned about looking good for the University of Waterloo and proving to them that this can be done.

That I can take a group of strangers to “Africa” and they wouldn’t get eaten by lions or cooked by cannibals.

Yes, I said it.

In my mind, I reframed the purpose of this trip to another battle against white supremacy.

I wanted to prove a point that my class (The Black Atlantic), and my vision, and my purpose at the University of Waterloo belonged. Even though I’m in a state of precarious employment, I was going to point a middle finger to the institution and say “f**k it – I’m going to show you what I can do.”

I did not articulate it explicitly, but I know that folks who were in my inner trip planning circle, started to notice my sentiment as we got closer to our departure date.

I was going to make this work.

I needed to make this work.

This was a no fail environment. In an environment where things could go wrong with some catastrophic consequences.

When we landed in Accra, and met with Musah and the team at Uprise Travel, I breathed a minor sigh of relief.

We made it.

Now, time for the real work to start.

****

My patience was tested from day one when we went to the tailor for folks to pick material to have dresses/suits/etc. made.

I was back holding my breath thinking: “damn, these white folks are going to trample all over that line from cultural appreciation to cultural appropriation.”

But I kept my mouth shut.

And we, with the support of my colleague (my foot/toe injury sibling), had an open and frank discussion about this topic in our nightly post-dinner debriefs.

I listened.

I spoke.

They listened.

They spoke.

We listened.

We spoke.

We were building something.

Communitas.

****

I wasn’t as nervous about going to the Cape Coast.

This was the moment that I wanted from my Black Brothers and Sisters on this trip. Especially what I wanted for my Mother.

This was the purpose of the trip.

And we talked about what each person wanted out of it.

What it meant to be white and where they should (literally and figuratively) stand on this tour of the dungeons.

What it meant to be Black and the emotional rollercoaster that was awaiting them on the beautiful (with the ugliest history known to human history) shores of the Cape Coast.

They listened.

They spoke.

We listened.

We spoke.

We were building something.

Communitas.

****

I’m not going to project my feelings on that day on anyone in the group. Black, white, or Brown.

What I did see – and hear – was raw emotion that night. I heard pain. I heard confusion. I heard sadness. I heard hope.

But I heard.

I watched and listened to white folks taking a back seat to the voices of Blackness.

Yes, there were some tenuous moments. And we weren’t holding hands and singing kumbaya.

Yes, I cringed at some of the comments made by white folks.

Yes, my patience was tested. The purpose of my trip was tested.

But we got through it.

Then the moment of communitas truly hit me.

The day when we went to Assin Manso Ancestral (en)Slave(d) River Site.

When we didn’t have to talk or plan how we would navigate this spiritual and emotional moment.

Where the white and non-Black folk in our group just knew what this site and moment signified. They stepped back as we were baptized in the river of death, but simultaneously cleansed our histories of (de)humanization.

It was in that moment, when I got back on the bus that I realized what we built. Even if it was fleeting and just in that one particular of time. Even if it was through some dehydration and intestinal issues. We had built communitas.

And you know what answered my questions about that line between cultural appropriation and appreciation?

When on the last night I saw the clothes they got made from the tailor.

All beautifully made, but with prints that had absolutely nothing to do with Ghanaian/Black culture.

They appreciated and supported a local (Black, Ghanaian, and female) business.

They got it.

I teach anthropology to undergraduate students in Edmonton, Alberta. I’ve taught many courses in Anthropology, but I have been hired and currently teach courses like race and racism in the modern world. As a White woman settler, I describe the importance of recognizing the structure of racism – in which everyday, ‘normative’ and unconscious racism is framed/made meaningful. I describe racism as power + prejudice, so students can start to understand the importance of one’s social positioning within a racialized societal framework and explore how cultural values and conventions shape our thoughts and broader discussions around racism in Canada.

I’ve taught these courses even before moving out to Edmonton from the greater Toronto area. While the content changed due to the students I had in my class, by and large, the classes on the topic of whiteness – the White privilege and the collective identity that White folks avoid identifying with – were met with surprise from White students and a lack of surprise from racialized students.

Yet, even as I read, prepared lectures, and delivered content, as I stood in the front of classes and self-identified as someone with White identity and as someone who lived/lives with privilege – I admit that whiteness still featured as something that was still abstract and theoretical in my everyday life.

When I travelled to Ghana with a group of Black, Brown, and White Canadian travellers, I was given an opportunity to experience, witness, and come up against whiteness. It was unavoidable. It was unavoidable in our group discussions as we spoke about where we had been that day and its impact on us. Whiteness was physically there as I experienced the horror of Elmira castle, built by my Dutch ancestors, as a port for the enslaved human beings stolen from across the continent and shipped across the Atlantic Ocean. My whiteness was in my face as I listened to my racialized colleagues share (read: gift) their experience as Black and Brown Canadians, experiencing these spaces – most – for the first time. At any point during this trip, if our group was witnessing the atrocities of enslavement, discussing the ramifications and contemporary legacy of colonialism, or exploring the role of whiteness and/or settlement and colonisation back in our home country, I was uncomfortable. And why would I be comfortable? For one of the first times ever, the flagrant whiteness of my life, of my ancestors’ lives, was tangible and impossible for me not to see.

This trip has changed my life (and I know how trite this sounds). It has transformed how I read about others’ experiences of whiteness and racism, it has changed which projects I dedicate my time to, how I engage and push students to learn, and how I continue to reflect and learn as part of my own work to decenter whiteness in my sphere of influence. In early 2020 before we embarked on this journey, I did not know if or how I would situate myself and be able to connect to a space that laid bare the evil dehumanisation of enslaved African peoples, and the toll this left on the Ghanaian landscape and people. What I came away with was a direct result of the temporary community – and our creation of communitas – I travelled with and their willingness to share their experiences (and the burden and labour that goes into this process). From their efforts, I now better understand the role of whiteness in my life, and in the lives of my ancestors who came before me.

Communitas is supposed to be a temporary experience where folks leave differently than they arrived. I think this is true for many travelers. While we can't continue in our liminal educational space, my task now is to be accountable to the gift of knowledge, patience, and the experiences I’ve had, by actively working to decenter whiteness here and now.