Today I went to the Whitney Plantation. Out of all the places on this trip the Whitney plantation was the last place that I wanted to visit. I feared that it would be a traumatic experience. Listening to the retelling of my ancestors' history is a challenging task, especially when very few in the tour group can truly relate to my family's experiences. So, I braced myself for the worst. 

We did not sugar coat conversations about slavery in my family. This was a constant conversation in my household. I do not know if it made me desensitized or resilient, but it became a topic I usually have no problem discussing. It became somewhat of a running joke between my siblings that my dad could bring just about every conversation back to slavery. For example, I would share that I had a chicken sandwich for lunch, then my dad would go on a 20 minute rant about how the chicken meat we eat today was a product of slavery. He took every opportunity possible to remember our history. However, the environment of the Whitney Plantation was still very overwhelming. It reminds me that this was a time full of pain and trauma that runs so deep that I inherited it because it was too much suffering for just one person to endure. 

In passing our tour guide shares her connection to the identifier African American. She states that she is not African at all; her family was born and raised in the States which makes her an American. This comment reminds me of a series of drawings that I created to challenge the title given to me by those in power: African American. 

For me, the title African American is full of irony and contradiction. I don't feel African. I am given this title because I have brown skin and descend from the Ivory Coast. However, I am so far removed from African culture that I cannot speak the languages, I cannot make traditional foods or relate to the culture. In fact, if I were to visit Africa, I would be called an American.

However, I don't feel American. It was made blatantly clear that the saying “for the people” never truly included me. During the time this statement was created, I would have been considered someone’s property. I would have been deemed the other and stripped of my humanity. My family's enslavement was intended to be perpetual and we were never supposed to be acknowledged as human in America. 

Inherently, I am suspicious of this country and question all forms of history. And rightfully so. My personal history with the country is an example of Afrosurrealism. The experiences of Black people in this country are so gruesome and bizarre that you could mistake the facts as a work of fiction. 

In Louisiana, some try to argue that slavery around New Orleans was better in terms of degrees of freedom. They argue that there were free people of color or that treatment in the big house was better than the field. However, our tour guide reminds us that the people that worked on Luisana plantations were still enslaved and the institution of slavery in any form is unacceptable. Even if a slave owner gives his enslaved people 10 years of schooling he is still a slave owner. They still play a role in a dehumanizing system and contribute to systems of oppression. 

I refuse to think of these people as tolerable. They were not brave for exploiting the natural resources and spreading their diseases to the native people. They were cowards for creating a system that prosepers on the suffering of Black people. If they wanted to be successful they should have picked themselves up by their bootstraps and picked the sugar themselves. 

There is no time to glorify this time in history. At the Whitney Plantation our tour guide cautions against believing the happy slave depiction in Hollywood and Disneyland. She warns us that most of the history we are taught is created by the people in power to justify their actions. The versions of history found in our history books and media serve as nothing but a lullaby to help some of us sleep soundly at night. 

The memorials at the Whitney Plantation offer the perspective from enslaved individuals. The tour guide shares the history facts. She warns us that the truth can offend people, but it must still be shared. At different moments in the tour, she shares a watered down version of the history, then waits eagerly for questions so that she can share more. It is clear she has accumulated a wealth of knowledge over the years living in Louisiana and working at the Whitney Plantation. 

What I find most powerful about this space are the testimonies from people who were enslaved across Louisiana. The act of etching someone's oral history into a plaque gives their story power. Their stories are raw and undeniable. There is no space for justification; their testimonies simply reflect the truth. Unlike when listening to someone speak or reading from a textbook, it is hard to doubt when confronted with firsthand accounts of people who lived on a plantation like the Whitney.  

Slavery is at the core of every story in this country regardless of race, ethnicity or region. Slavery is the backbone for this country's prosperity therefore this story is woven through all aspects of life. It is about time we start telling the true story of what happened here. The Whitney has just started this process but there are a lot more stories to be told.