Oh Oh Obeah

Recently me and a date went to a showing of Obeah Opera by Nicole Brooks, an a capella opera taking place during the Salem Witch Trials. It follows the story of 4 slave women accused of being witches for practicing religion and spirituality other than Christianity, such as Obeah.

It is the best theatre I have seen since last year’s Eating with Lola by Catherine Hernandez. Which caused me to bawl and floored me with it’s exploration of histories and our elders.

It feels like this play arrived right when I needed it to. For the past few months to a year I have been on a quest to find my ancestors. My grandmother is one of my primary people and she knows just about everything about my family. Except, of course, what came years before her. Being poor black people in the late 19th century into the 20th, there wasn’t a lot of record keeping occurring in my family’s favour. Birth, death, marriage certificates don’t exist. But there are legends.

I grew up hearing the term “Obeah woman”, learning to believe that these were wild and unruly women of Jamaica. They weren’t to be trusted.

Brooks’ deconstruction of where those fears and judgments came from spoke to the conflict I have been experiencing between what I have been taught and my longing for the traditions of my ancestors.

An Obeah woman/man, beyond what I knew and what wikipedia says : is a term used in the West Indies to refer to [someone who practices] folk magic, sorcery, and religious practices derived from West African, and specifically Igbo origin.

I have just recently put down this amazing book on Caribbean religions that gave me such impressive knowledge about all of the different locations the slaves came from in Africa and how it influenced their descendants. Not surprisingly, many of the religions in the islands come from the traditions of the first slaves to the region. The connections just go so far back and I am so thirsty for more of those connections to live in my brain and in my blood.

Obeah Opera answered some of those questions and heartened me to know that there are so many other diasporic folks that are looking far, far back in search of directions forward.

frustrated

I am not a news hound but there are items that catch my attention and hold on for good.

A couple of weeks ago, a Toronto Police officer shot and killed a mentally disabled black man on the streets of a residental neighbourhood. He was being held at a nearby hospital for a 72 hour assessment and somehow escaped and was found roaming the area in a hospital gown, no shoes, holding a pair of scissors in each hand. Those were his only weapons. There was an outcry, a vigil, but still no answers as to why the officer reacted the way he did – three shots point blank at a lost and disoriented man. After he had been fatally shot he was tackled to the ground and restrained. Read the article if you like.

Not weeks later, another mentally ill man went missing from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. This man, George May is white, has been convicted of murder and institutionalized at the above. It was not his first time escaping from a psych facility and both times, an alarm went up, police were involved, and he was returned presumably unharmed. The police involvement however differs in that when May went missing the police were called in to help find him and bring him back.

I try not to call racism unless I have really thought about it but RACISMRACISMRACISM!!

more later when i am not so frustrated

parkdale paranoia

This has me quite rattled. As a woman, queer woman, woman of colour I sadly have practical reasons for being scared of walking alone at night. I avoid it at all costs unless the distance is short enough that I could run if I had to. I hold my keys between my fingers in case someone gets to close. I am going to buy pepper spray. 

This woman was in her OWN HOME. This man was determined and had a target, it seems. I am feeling for her so much, I want to know if she is ok, is going to be ok. I want to reach out to her somehow to tell her I have been thinking of her constantly. 

The fear of the outside is one thing but to imagine this situation is, I haven’t found the words. As it is I check my locks fastidiously; I scan the surrounding area of my house to see if anyone is lingering in the shadows. This event has crumbled what security I felt I had. I am still processing this news…

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=parkdale%20toronto%2C%20sexual%20assault&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thestar.com%2Fnews%2Fcrime%2Farticle%2F1140653–woman-sexually-assaulted-while-sleeping-in-parkdale-home&ei=IMRUT9XNC4Lh0QHBh93_DQ&usg=AFQjCNHEqbygM9XHIUSk44ihuB2hTntxYg