rootsandculture

(Originally Published by Kaieteur News July 30, 2018) By Clairmont Chung 
“My name is Gary Thomas. I was an orphan”. Mild murmuring could be heard from the audience. “My mother died when I was four years old.” A collective groan followed. “My father took me to an orphanage. He said he would return, but never did”. Silence. “I waited five years before I gave up expecting to hear the gate and that it would be him.” Artists and Coordinators from Roots and Culture Gallery and Pan African Workshop. Thomas is 2nd from rt (c) roots&culture With these words, Remilton “Gary” Thomas began his talk at the opening of an art exhibit hosted by The Court Street School Education Community Center in Freehold, New Jersey, for Black History Month, February 2018. Roots and Culture Gallery curated the show titled, “The Arc of Brown Bodies” and featured Thomas’ as well as the work of Happiness Akaniro Olude, Hazel Daniel, Emmanuel Glen, Grace Daniel, and from the Roots and Culture Collecti

by clairmont chung As I write, people of African ascent [1]  are streaming across borders in the same way as Latin Americans at the US border. They are moving from turmoil and uncertainty to a promise of change. Significant numbers are dying in that effort.  The destination countries pronounce on who is eligible to enter and who is not. None take any responsibility for the conditions back in the source countries. Groups within the destination countries are even more explicit about not accepting more immigrants and limiting the rights and entitlements of those already present. This article is not to address the many reasons for desperate people to take dangerous trips. Instead, it is about a specific group: American Descendants of Slaves (ADOS) attempting to deny reparative US resources to persons whose ancestors were never enslaved in the US. This is just another form of anti-immigrant sentiment and part of a global wave of conservatism that promotes racism, a kind of ethnic iso