front of a black audience
it wasn’t it is in the city suburbs of
Melbourne and it was in this garage like
vineyard and I’ve just seen a face book
of a pop up on my newsfeed I didn’t know
who was gonna be there but I happen to
be in Melbourne on that day and so I
want to check that out I was really
curious about the description that said
Black Arts Collective when I went to
that space I was really astounded by
what I saw I’m gonna rewind for a moment
I came to Ghana lent a blade from
Eritrea when I was three years old so I
went to kindergarten primary school high
school University here in Adelaide and
throughout school I really learned a lot
about myself as the other let me explain
what I mean by that
it seemed that to everybody in my
classroom or in the school or wherever I
was I was the embodiment of every type
of other that there was it was a very
wide area so there wasn’t that much
diversity not many people of color and
there was so little awareness and
exposure now whenever the teachers would
mention anything about indigenous
whatever you said you mentioned idea
everyone wanted me
whatever the teacher mentioned Africa
everyone looked at me and this continued
with everything whether it was Muslims
or Arabs or anybody else that we
mentioned that wasn’t white sari
throughout school this is a time when
kids usually get an opportunity to
explore themselves and really see
different role models whether they’re
people that come into the classroom or
they’re teachers that are already there
through their interactions with their
friends and you can really discover
different things about who they can be
in the future who can who they can be
now I don’t feel like I really got that
experience because any time I was
represented whether it was in history or
whatever else a few times it was as the
other so that’s where I saw myself as I
really internalized that so when I was
about 14 my sister and my two cousins
and I started going to the city on
Fridays after school and when we went we
met people from all different
backgrounds we were meeting Africans on
a regular basis were meeting Muslims
were meeting people from everywhere who
all had different stories and this
became kind of addictive to me and I
didn’t realize the significance of it
until very recently actually but at that
time I couldn’t I didn’t want to miss a
Friday because there was some kind of
comfort that I found in my space when I
first started performing poetry I was 15
I remember coming to a venue and I had
two poems with me one of them was about
my experiences she was going with
Friday’s and kind of meeting other
people that had similar
system eight I was suddenly unlocking a
different part of myself I was learning
a lot more and so my rising was becoming
very different so I had a poem about
that and my second poem was about
happiness and it was just about how to
be happy I looked into the audience and
saw that there was nobody who was really
going to relate to my experiences and
again I just felt like the other so I
did the second poem about happiness and
everybody could relate and it got me
very far
it was universal and I continued to
perform poetry like that that was very
much about you know just just positivity
and really lovely things but it was
never really being honest with myself
because I wasn’t saying the things that
I wanted or needed to say this kind of
being translated its my activism and the
work that I did later on in life I
noticed that every time I spoke it was
about reaching out to the wider audience
and almost just trying to humanize
myself trying to change their minds and
their perspectives and this is a very
exhausting thing for me because I’m
constantly trying to remind somebody
that you’re a person means that you’re
not really allowing yourself to grow and
see what what there is of humanity what
kind of a person you can be you’re still
stuck at that point of just I’m a person
I’m a person and I felt like in doing
this I was neglecting myself fast
forward to a few years later in this
garage area
garage a venue enrollment when I stepped
in there I saw so many people of African
descent from different countries who
look different who are of different
religions who had different interests I
was in that space and I saw people who
were writers people who musicians
I saw a vase or an exhibition in one
corner clothes swapping the other and
all these things I’ve never really seen
how the Africans doing because it felt
like we were constantly confined to the
imaginations of other people but in this
space or able to thrive we were able to
learn from each other we were able to
see different versions of ourselves and
see what was possible and that’s what I
really felt there were two things in
particular about this space they were
empowering to me one of them was this
representation it changed what that word
meant to me and it became one of my
favorite word’s because representation
could determine who we decide we want to
be because we are influenced by
everything that we see and everybody
that we interact with the second thing
that was so empowering to me was that
this space was rounded by black African
people young people it was it was a
group of people who had decided that
they weren’t the other they earned their
identity they knew who they were in this
space and they were they were taking a
claim of who they were in this society
and they were determining what they
would do this was very empowering for me
because they weren’t asking for
permission they were trying to change
anybody’s mind let me just be and what
they’ve done what they’ve
I know he has inspired many more than
just me this was a really pivotal moment
in my growth but it didn’t mean that it
was going to be any easier to kind of
change and see how I needed to make
change but I was determined to bring
something like this to Adelaide because
there wasn’t much there if there wasn’t
much here in Adelaide at that time now
I’m 22 and over the past three years
there’s been a huge change in my
perspective and how I do things
so when I came back to Adelaide I was
still working in the same space and it
became more exhausting to constantly be
trying to change the minds of other
people and how they perceived me because
now I knew what it was like to be in a
place where I could be focusing on
myself and I noticed it in doing what I
was doing which was work that was so
necessary definitely but I was
neglecting myself and I really was like
neglecting myself but I was neglecting
anybody else have identified with my
stories who just needed to be the focus
of the attention for a change instead of
always being left on the margins while
we focus on the wider community so I
started thinking about what these
changes that are needed to make work and
they were she continued to create spaces
what to begin to create space
as I guess in Adelaide where young
people like everybody that I was meeting
every Friday who has third culture kids
who didn’t necessarily fit into the box
of immigrants or or or anything else
when they would really decide what they
wanted to do who they wanted to be and
to bring in support for that kind of
thing has been difficult at times
because there’s this tendency for us to
think that the only way that focusing on
minority communities the only way that
they can that that can be helpful to the
rest of the nation is by finding ways to
whether it’s assimilate that will make
them connect with the wider community
but sometimes it’s really just about
creating spaces to foster that work what
I find that we need is that for those
who consider themselves allies to really
think about how they’re helping and we
have a shift to a model of empowerment
because what we don’t need is for people
who are not African for example to be
holding African African Film Festival
when somebody who is African could be
doing that because that is empowering
for restaurants to be opened parading
African cultures or whatever else when
they’re not African because this takes
opportunities from people who really do
do something and take ownership of their
identity and move forward I’m most
importantly we need to make sure that
when it’s when we see people like a
group of African boys go hanging out on
the streets together or a group of
sisters who stick together in a
classroom or in the neighborhood or in
workplace or wherever else this is not a
threat in any way this is simply people
cultivating a space where they feel or
cultivating a sense of safety because
living as a minority in this country can
often mean that you feel like you’re in
a violent environment on a regular basis
and for me personally what this is meant
is that I no longer feel guilty if
perhaps today I need to just be around
my African sisters or today I just need
to be around Muslims because today I
might not feel like justifying myself
and negotiating Who I am and explaining
myself and that’s okay because sometimes
it’s only in these spaces that we can
really feel free and when I stepped onto
that when I was in that space when I was
19 the garage
I was I stood out not because of the
clothes that I wore but because I had
some doubts lyrics to share I have some
things to say and others not simply my
exterior and that was an empowering
thing and it’s because of space
just like that but I’m able to be here
and really share my truth regardless of
who’s in the audience and that’s the
kind of resilience that we need to be
building and these spaces can help us thank you very much