Slavery
Young dancing beauty holding a bottle of rosé Wine and dance for us, you very young one Our throats have run dry and tears flow from our eyes The last moment has come the gag and the gallows Masquerade has changed sides, now parading in Westminster The masks are the new rule but of fear […]
Notting Hill Carnival is the mix of generations and cultures It was designed by Claudia Jones Cumberbatch as such To ease the relations between communities bringing them together Racist murder and attacks against the black community led to riots Carnival was the best solution in a post-war England fraught with tensions And widespread racial prejudice […]
The tip of the black iceberg Black Lives Matter is not new The Fight has been going on Under different slogans and names It stems from a common history Genocide, Colonization, Slavery Supremacism and Racism Justice in the name of one But for all the victims of racism The many unknown soldiers… Photo Hugh Ardoin […]
In an Orwellian society bent on discipline and punishment Happiness should have long been declared a human right But faceless rulers and censors sold democracy for profit While know-it-all techno-archangels decide about good and evil As in the times of slavery, Carnival is a rare opportunity to be free Forty-five years of cold-war have numbered, […]
Two girls parade their open-mindedness on Chepstow Like the closet is not large enough for the woke times Race and gender mixed agendas bodes ill for the future The deep and the shallow meet halfway where the quicksands are Slavery, colonialism and the genocides need proper recognition and reparations Freedom of choice is of the […]
Every year the Notting Hill Carnival brings together over a million people They come from the world over although the majority is Afro-Caribbean A celebration of masquerade as it was performed by emancipated slaves Slaves were not allowed to participate in masquerades and Carnival It was the initiation to freedom and a warning to the […]
Missionary conversions never erased the spirit of Animism Sharing the “Jab” mythology of the horned god called devil Hope of justice in the after-life helped survive the pains of slavery But was it no more than another pie in the sky to rein in anger and hunger Looking at the world from the cloud of […]
Borrowing the horns from the “Jab” and the molasses from the cane A beauty celebrates the emancipation of her forbears In a grand style to remind the masters of the Judgment Day They will go where they belong with chains, molasses and devils May they unrest in un-peace… Photo Hugh Ardoin The Notting Hill 2019 […]
A dash of Afro-Caribbean colors in a crowded street Flashing the hoodie or the weaving is a claim to full emancipation There is no going back, black people exact their soft revenge For centuries deported, murdered, enslaved, invaded and robbed Granted an independence not worth the paper, no reparations The time of reckoning will come, […]
Columbus the non-commissioned admiral, the Genovese adventurer set sail with three ships and the blessing of the Queen and the Bishops of Spain in 1492 It all started with a series of errors at times when the shape of Earth was still uncertain, before Galileo recanted his theories in 1633 So Columbus discovered the Americas […]