London Town

Meocha Belle 7/3

Today is my second day in London. And I got to fly The London Eye! I saw London from great heights and got some amazing photos of the town. I also went sight-seeing on both a bus and boat tour. What struck me most was how explanations and stories of the same monuments, buildings and historical happenings, all had different beginnings and endings of the teller. Even though I took notice to this, the speakers were probably unaware how skewed the stories sound when compared.
I immediately thought of Baldwin and so many writers that wrote of personal contact and experience correlating with viewpoints. It is truely amazing how so many people think they know what they believ and affirm is true. I am constantly trying to get information from people to get information from different people to draw my own conclusions on ideas and events. Without doing so, you may be lead by the blind. Paris Noir has definately heightened this neccessity to learn more and not take things just because its told. In its design, there are many voices and therefore, stories and perspectives on similar issues. Our job as the students are to take what you can, analyze it and make it our own.

While in London I my newly found tools of analyses lead me to make a discovery in a mission that was impossible. Rudy and I tried to visit the site of the 2012 Olympic Games. Unfortunately, this was a failed attempt. We got close but were many blocks from the venue, even though it was in clear-view. After much re-routing and further examination, I noticed that we could not reach the venue because of the area we were in trying to get there. While navigating the streets and train tracks, we ended up in what was clearly an urban, destitute area, despite its visible mixed community of races. This area was completely blocked off from the venue where the 2012 Olympic Games will be held. After trying for hours, on train and foot, there was no way that we could reach the venue from anywhere near that location. Most of the train lines and routes were not running either and since it was not a holiday or major event happening, it was clear what was going on. The people in that community, which included us at that moment, were systematically being kept out of certain places in the town and metro-area. They were literally gated inside their one area and had little to no access outside.

This immediately drew me to think of the Bastille protest we visited in Paris. Although these are different situation indifferent locations, in both places, the people are being worked but not given full citizenship- or even partial citizenship, in some cases. The same struggle is happening to people of predominately African-Diasporic racial identities across the globe. This is why a program such as Paris Noir is needed. For centuries, systems of oppression have existed and functioned in communities that are thought to be very dissimilar even within the African Diaspora, yet the social, political and economic circumstances bind us much more closely than we know. Awareness of the Africaine Presence in international locales allows for the imaginary gap to be closed across Diaspora.

~Paris Noir 2010