FROM THE MIDDLE PASSAGE TO BLACK LIVES MATTER: ANCESTRAL WRITING AS A PEDAGOGY OF HOPE

EDITORIAL-Dr. Marva McClean
Translating the human experience into a global narrative
The issues that have arisen with the pandemic Coronavirus speak to the very issues social justice & equity activists have been addressing all along: the need to consider and accept that we are all connected; that the world has an abundance of resources and no one group should be marginalized and live in deficit. Central to this is the urgency to examine the way people of color are treated and for there to be just and equitable treatment of Indigenous peoples worldwide. Pivotal in this discourse is the need to design and sustain a harmonious relationship with the Earth, a philosophy that remains central to the worldview of Indigenous peoples. Like the fires that ravaged Australia recently, this pandemic is calling on world leadership to give thoughtful consideration to the way First Nation Peoples/Indigenous Peoples have been treated and to open up their perspective to incorporate philosophies of respect for the environment and communal living that are so central to Indigenous epistemology. Leading agenda items include climate crisis, global starvation and food injustice, deforestation, and digging up of burial sites and sacred land. Respect for the land and the reverential treatment of the environment are part of the ancient philosophy of First Peoples including the Aboriginals of Australia, The Maroons of Jamaica, Native Americans of North America, and the Maoris of New Zealand. Beginning with the advent of slavery though to emancipation and Jim Crow & neo-colonization, racialized communities-of Black, Indigenous & People of Color-disproportionality struggle with environmental racialization and its geographical manifestations. It is time to loosen the grip of First World arrogance and allow for an inclusive perspective to take the lead in cleansing the moral, philosophical, environmental and medical disaster that has overtaken our globe. Black, Indigenous & People of Color must also take the responsibility to heal dysfunctional patterns and daily ways of life that no longer serve us. It is then that we can begin to translate the human experience into a global narrative of brotherhood and empowerment.

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