The Life of Shinke

So yesterday was Emancipation Day here in Jamaica.

Gotta start the best month off with a bang right?

And in a couple days we’ll be celebrating Independence Day.

And this got me thinking as it does almost every 1st of August.

What does Emancipation really mean?

Yes we’ve been freed from our physical bonds but have we freed ourselves from that mental cage?

On August 1, 1838 when we were freed from our bonds, when we were no longer seen as propety but people, humans, legally at least, did anything really change?

They still saw us as the scum of the Earth, and they still treated us like nobodies who should now be thankful, grateful to gain the right we were so cruelly denied for centuries.

We still followed their unspoken rules and still carried their ideals. The garbage they filled our heads with to make us conform and do what they asked without question.

It all still remained.

Fast forward to the present, 178 years later, has anything changed?

Barely.

We still aren’t comfortable in our own skin, in our own land, with our own worth. We still think they’re better. We still think that we’re second class, that we have to cozy up to them to be someone.

But today I want to challenge you, to assert yourself, to show them that you are black and you’re proud. Be happy being you. Embrace your culture, embrace your nationality, embrace your colour, your race, your people. Be unapologetically you.

Today is your day!

And in the words of the great and legendary Bob Marley “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; none but ourselves can free our mind”

Enjoy your day!