8: CHECKING OUT ME HISTORY - JOHN AGARD

phonetic spelling

giving him and his people a voice, represents his accent

mimics how children are taught, makes what we learn seem childish and pointless

written like a nursery rhyme, sings stanzas about what the English teach

dem tell me/ dem tell me/ wha dem want to tell me

repetition, they only say what they want us to know, repeat the same things

bandage up me eye with me own history/ blind me to me own identity

wounded, effected and hurt by not being able to have an identity

dem tell me bout 1066 and all dat/ dem tell me bout Dick Whittington and he cat

implies it’s unimportant, mixing in history and child stories to show it’s irrelevance

spoken in a serious tone

sections telling black history, shows there importance

dem tell me bout de dish ran away with de spoon but dem never tell me bout Nanny de maroon

compares a bunch of children’s stories which we are taught to the important history we aren’t

Toussaint de beacon/ fire-woman struggle/ healing star/ yellow sunrise

semantic field, among historical figures, light shows power and hope

dem tell me bout Columbus and 1492 but what happen to de Caribs and de Arawaks too

we paint our history positively while avoiding negatives, colonizers no colonized

dem tell me bout Florence Nightingale/ but dem never tell me bout Mary Seacole

two important nurse from the same time period, one is less recognised

i carving out me identity

violent, laborious, had to fight and work hard

Toussaint L’Ouverture/ Nanny de maroon/ Shaka de great Zulu/ Mary Seacole

important black historical figures

empathy

sensitivity to another’s feelings as if they were ones own

enmity

ill will, hatred, hostility

erudite

learned