SANKOFA TO GHANA.

Today, it seems like there is a misunderstanding of the art…especially in the Black community. For some reason, I have found that some young people of today have adopted and perfected arguing their way out of an opportunity with excuses.

While others act as if they are entitled to receiving opportunities and will not share their experience with the next...lingering in the inevitable question of “What’s in it for me?” instead of the gracious response of “No Strings Attached!” Not all, but I’ve been met with people dragging their feet, in situations where I had to go as far as bypassing my community, circling back by way of people outside my culture. In other words, back dooring my way to help my own community. And while there’s nothing wrong with outside supporters, the problem is we end up having to depend on others when we have all we need to support ourselves…if only we look to our past.

In Ghana, there is a word Sankofa (Wikipedia) in the Twi language that means “to retrieve…go back and get. Sankofa is often associated with the proverb, Se wo were fi na wosankifa a yenkyi. Which translates as: It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten.”

And while I have not forgotten my past, in an effort to preserve tradition, my non-profit éLan Statistics looked back to our roots by presenting our outreach project DreamTicket to the children of Bridge To Africa Connection’s Kumasi, Ghana Project ’22. The outpour of acceptance and interests in my life experience from the children of Kumasi reassured me that Sankofa is not lost. They too look to Black American descendants who have been forgotten due to white supremacist erasure. Presenting DreamTicket has more to do with making a connection to our past. Sharing empowering stories is an Artist’s tool I choose to use to give back.

But again, this art is dwindling—In the United States that is. As I was visiting with the children of Kumasi, they reminded me of a time just 40 years ago here in the United States. That was a time before name brand clothes and celebrity status became a thing. We were more focused on self-improvement and creating something with nothing. Information and application were power, so if anyone took the time to share valuable life experience, we were all ears ready to learn. Our role-models or “celebrities” so to speak were right there at arm’s length. Most of the time we had our favorite teachers, community service workers and sometimes the honors students whom we aimed to “be like.” And it was only their presence that empowered us to do well. The majority of us had no need for material things or popular association to gain attention. This time made space for the seasoned members of our community to honor their commitment to reach out to young people, passing the torch and preserving the culture.

But over the generations, things changed. And a finger can’t be pointed toward the blame. So many distractions and “sugar” has coated the truth, pacifying our needs. Putting a band aid over soars festered by education suppression, lack of resources and nutrition deprivation. We’ve been starved of basic necessities and saturated with artificial satisfaction to a point where we don’t even know what needs must be healed. My grade-school teacher Ms. Karen Brian Johnson used to say, “All you need is food, shelter and clothing.” That alone motivated me to take risks and press on through Graduate School and travels around the world. I knew that as long as I had those three basic needs met, the rest would come accordingly. To not invest time, waisted on certain name brand clothes or to have been over stimulated with toxic popular images, left room for creativity and my own imagination. I had the necessary basic resources that would eventually overflow allowing me to obtain knowledge and the resources to create and manifest my own inventions. It would be the process of taking my inspired imagination and bringing it to life so that at the end of the day the wealthy Black culture I know would be preserved and I could pass it on.

Today things have shifted. With an overstimulated community filled with imbalanced energy, I tend to wonder if there’s any room for substance. Have our children been programmed to settle for short term gratification, leaving us at the end of the day owning nothing? I’ve met young people and the adults who teach them who have successfully learned how to argue their way out of an opportunity by making up excuses. Excuses they use to camouflage their fears. The whole idea of suppressing the development and education of our children is not as black and white anymore. It’s gray. And many live in denial accepting or running from the fact that they are being used to keep our children from surviving. There was a time our teachers and parents didn’t let us slide through school or miss an opportunity. However, as of the past 10 years, it has been my experience with certain institutions where I have been passed over, shut down and locked out from empowering my young Black community. I guess my journey has been too long and “suffering for them to handle. ”(By no means have I suffered. Challenging maybe and a struggle yes. And like Frederick Douglass said, “Without struggle…there is no progress.” So, I welcome it!) It’s as if we’re so desperate for a quick fix that we’ll give away our energy for a cheap “solution”, that once consumed, we’re suffering for another fix. The cycle continues its spin off track, ignoring the realization that things just don’t happen over-night. The long journey is tough for a reason. It makes one stronger to withstand the challenges. It strengthens our roots so our culture cannot be whitewashed and us erased. This life experience is a lesson our children need to know too! Otherwise, we are setting them up for failure.

Meanwhile, other communities like the Ghanaian Community have invited me into their homes with open arms…hungry for information and inspiration. Cherishing any books or reading materials I could offer, they hung on my every word and afterward asked insightful questions. I learned a lot from them as well. Through them, I saw a lot of what’s missing in us. I wondered too if with some of my information, I was an unintentional bad influence on them. Our current Icons/Success Stories oftentimes are associated with scandal driven by the need for greed instead of lead with pride and dignity. I don’t have anything against Entertainers or Entertainment for that matter as I’m an Artist who entertains myself. It’s just unfortunate that the pendulum has swung too far into scandal that as I mentioned before it’s caused us to be dependent on other cultures for our existence.

We depend on others to validate everything we do. If we don’t invent technology in their institutions, find cures in their medical facilities, follow their education curriculum, our progress doesn’t count. And when it comes to the Arts, we don’t have control over marketing and distribution, so if we don’t meet the “standard stereotype” of what others want marketed and programmed into viewing audiences’ minds, our authenticity is phased out. Furthermore, to prevent our culture from re-emerging providing generational wealth, our Arts programs are extinguished, and dumbed down with our education. But with Independent Indie-Filmmakers and Information Providers like myself, small a group as we are, all hope is not hopeless. We just need to get out of our own way and our future generations’ way.