Wade’s remarks came months after the release of Adanggaman, by Ivory Coast director Roger Gnoan M’bala, “the first African film to look at African involvement in the slave trade with the West.” “It’s up to us,” M’Bala insisted, “to talk about slavery, open the wounds of what we’ve always hidden and stop being puerile when we put responsibility on others . . . . In our own oral tradition, slavery is left out purposefully because Africans are ashamed when we confront slavery. Let’s wake up and look at ourselves through our own image.”8
Africans felt shame for their role in the slave trade and slaves felt shame for their position as slaves.
As long as there is that shame, we won't be able to move forward. Slavery is rare today (but still exists). The people who were enslaved are long gone. The people who had a hand in their delivery into slavery are long gone as well.
It's the past, and even though it's so difficult to accept, we have to accept it, acknowledge that it happened, learn from it, and move on to some form of reconciliation. What's that quote, "he who does not learn from the past, is doomed to repeat it..."
I keep hearing the cry for reparations and at one point I was all for it. I don't know so much about that anymore. It's like a double-edged sword. The people who should have been made whole, can never be made whole. So how can you resolve the global question...?
It's something to think about.
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