Reclaiming our past so that we can move forward

Commentary by Robin Raveneau

“Sankofa” is an Akan word that means, “we must go back and reclaim our past so that we can move forward; so we understand why and how we came to be who we are today.”
    Reclaiming the past can be a very difficult thing to do for us Africans living in America. We often define ourselves only by our experience in this country, calling our ancestors slaves, as though that is the sum of who we are and the people that we come from.
    Long before this infantile country came into existence, African people were charting the heavens, creating dynasties and traveling the world. Our history began at the beginning, and we must go back and fetch it so that we may move forward. Sankofa.
    I am making my first trip back home to Africa — to Egypt (Kemet) and Ghana, specifically — in July. This is a spiritual journey for me because I believe that I will discover things about myself on this journey that I could not discover here. There are pieces of my life, of my story, that will be revealed, helping me to understand how I came to be the person I am today.
    I am careful not to romanticize this trip home, for our wounding as African people is not confined to the Americas. Our brothers and sisters on the Continent suffer our loss, too, and I believe that an integral part of our healing lies is our willingness to reconnect with the African part that has been severed, boiled down and Americanized.
    The concept of Sankofa is a not just a physical one. Going back and reclaiming our past is about reclaiming ourselves; our individual joys, pains and journeys. As African people, our lives are often fragmented — we leave a piece of ourselves here, a piece of ourselves there, and there we don’t have rituals, ways or processes by which to retrieve and repair ourselves. Sankofa teaches us that without those pieces of ourselves, we cannot move forward and we cannot be whole.
    The Critical Mass Health Conductor (CMHC) program helped me to reclaim part of myself. It ignited a journey that I knew I had to take, but wasn’t sure how. I was connected with other black people who were in search of the way back to themselves, too, and together we began the way back home. Healing begins where the wounding began, and it all begins and ends at home.

Robin Raveneau, Health Conductor #98, is a member of Critical Mass Health Conductors and can be contacted at rraveneau@gmail.com. For more information about the Bay Area Black United Fund, call (510) 763- 7270 or visit www.babuf.org.