The article reflects on personal cultural experiences and their profound impact on perspectives. It highlights the significance of David Hammons’s body prints as intimate representations of identity. The author's visit to the House of Slaves in Senegal reinforced the resilience of African peoples through the defiant joy of children. Key literary influences include works by Nikki Giovanni and James Baldwin, which shape ongoing inquiries into identity and motherhood. Recommendations include the documentary "Soundtrack to a Coup D'Etat," which critiques historical narratives surrounding the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, emphasizing the creative interplay between art and social commentary.
When I visited the House of Slaves on the island of Gorée in Dakar, Senegal, I didn't expect to see so many children. They ran and laughed through the prison's corridors. Their happiness seemed defiant in such a place. They reminded me of African peoples' resilience.
I read A Poem Off Center by Nikki Giovanni recently. This poem affected me because it gives form to what I have felt as a woman and a mother. I also return to Trinh T. Minh-Ha's essays and Dionne Brand's A Map to the Door of No Return.
I recommend watching Soundtrack to a Coup D'Etat, a documentary about the history of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
To open us up to each other.
Pressing his body on paper was such an intimate act. The impressions of his skin are at once him and not him.
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