“I feel that when we take the time to explore our backgrounds a little bit further back, and we take the time to travel to those places where our ancestors may have at one point lived. I served a mission to West Africa, and a lot of my ancestors are from that area. And upon getting there I felt an immense connection to them because this is where their journey began.
There’s a really emotional moment where in Ghana, in Cape Coast there’s a castle, and that’s where a large majority of the slaves were shipped from before crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
And there’s a door that leaves out to the port. Well if you’re coming back in through that door across the top there’s a little placard that says “the door of return”. And what happens is African Americans who walk back through that door, it’s kind of like this bridging connection where your ancestors left here 400 years ago but you are now returning through that door. So it’s kind of like a really cool experience to be able to go there and to go down into the dungeons where they kept these slaves and then walking out the door and looking at the Atlantic Ocean and then turning around and walking back into Ghana. And that was a number of moments that impacted me as far as being able to connect to my ancestors and understand what they had to go through and endure. It was just a blessing that the ancestors that I had managed to make it through that trial of being packed in a ship and brought over. That’s something that is just inspiring.
“I would say the ability to listen, and just listen to someone but listen with someone. One of my favorite rap groups, OutKast, Big Boi, he said, “You’re listening to my words but you’re not feeling me with your heart”. It’s feeling what it is that someone has gone through in their life, that is the best way to understand what needs to happen for change to take it’s full effect. It’s kind of like the atonement. The Savior went through these things and he did this for all of us. He had to understand, He had to feel what it was like in order to be able to work a change in people. If he didn’t feel or have that change, it would have all been for nothing.
“Navigating race here in Utah has been refreshing, it has been one where I know people who look like me are here and if we see each other in public we just do a little up-nod or something like that. It’s like this unspoken thing of like, “I see you”. I never experienced that in Georgia, just because that’s how it is. But moving out here, it’s like, “I’m probably the only Black guy in this Mcdonald’s right now” or “I’m the only one out here walking on this street”. It can be a bit intimidating. I will say when George Floyd happened and that was kind of like the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, and me being a photographer, and doing film and going out and taking photos, I was afraid. I was afraid to go out with my camera and just kind of document what was going on. I was afraid that people would think I was doing something suspicious, or that my camera would be a gun or something like that. And I stopped taking photos for awhile. I would very rarely go out. I didn’t feel safe to even go and get my film developed. At that point in time, especially with the coronavirus stuff happening, I felt like I was trapped and I couldn’t really do much. When I started taking photos again, I started over exaggerating my movements. Like I’m reaching in my bag, I’m pulling out my camera, I’m putting the lens on. And that kind of became a routine of, “I'm not a threat, I’m just here to do this.”
There’s a really emotional moment where in Ghana, in Cape Coast there’s a castle, and that’s where a large majority of the slaves were shipped from before crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
And there’s a door that leaves out to the port. Well if you’re coming back in through that door across the top there’s a little placard that says “the door of return”. And what happens is African Americans who walk back through that door, it’s kind of like this bridging connection where your ancestors left here 400 years ago but you are now returning through that door. So it’s kind of like a really cool experience to be able to go there and to go down into the dungeons where they kept these slaves and then walking out the door and looking at the Atlantic Ocean and then turning around and walking back into Ghana. And that was a number of moments that impacted me as far as being able to connect to my ancestors and understand what they had to go through and endure. It was just a blessing that the ancestors that I had managed to make it through that trial of being packed in a ship and brought over. That’s something that is just inspiring.
“I would say the ability to listen, and just listen to someone but listen with someone. One of my favorite rap groups, OutKast, Big Boi, he said, “You’re listening to my words but you’re not feeling me with your heart”. It’s feeling what it is that someone has gone through in their life, that is the best way to understand what needs to happen for change to take it’s full effect. It’s kind of like the atonement. The Savior went through these things and he did this for all of us. He had to understand, He had to feel what it was like in order to be able to work a change in people. If he didn’t feel or have that change, it would have all been for nothing.
“Navigating race here in Utah has been refreshing, it has been one where I know people who look like me are here and if we see each other in public we just do a little up-nod or something like that. It’s like this unspoken thing of like, “I see you”. I never experienced that in Georgia, just because that’s how it is. But moving out here, it’s like, “I’m probably the only Black guy in this Mcdonald’s right now” or “I’m the only one out here walking on this street”. It can be a bit intimidating. I will say when George Floyd happened and that was kind of like the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, and me being a photographer, and doing film and going out and taking photos, I was afraid. I was afraid to go out with my camera and just kind of document what was going on. I was afraid that people would think I was doing something suspicious, or that my camera would be a gun or something like that. And I stopped taking photos for awhile. I would very rarely go out. I didn’t feel safe to even go and get my film developed. At that point in time, especially with the coronavirus stuff happening, I felt like I was trapped and I couldn’t really do much. When I started taking photos again, I started over exaggerating my movements. Like I’m reaching in my bag, I’m pulling out my camera, I’m putting the lens on. And that kind of became a routine of, “I'm not a threat, I’m just here to do this.”
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