The Door of No Return at The House of Slaves on Gorée Island, off the coast of Dakar, Senegal, is sa
The Door of No Return at The House of Slaves on Gorée Island, off the coast of Dakar, Senegal, is said to memorialise a final exit point of enslaved people from Africa.Dionne Brand, in her A Map to The Door of No Return, writes:The door signifies the historical moment which colours all moments in the Diaspora. It accounts for the ways we observe and are observed as people, whether it’s through the lens of social injustice or the lens of human accomplishments. The door exists as an absence. A thing in fact which we do not know about, a place we do not know. Yet it exists as the ground we walk. Every gesture our bodies make somehow gestures toward this door. What interest me primarily is probing the Door of No Return as consciousness. The door casts a haunting spell on personal and collective consciousness in the Diaspora. Black experience in any modern city or town in the Americas is a haunting. One enters a room and history follows; one enters a room and history precedes. History is already seated in the chair in the empty room when one arrives. Where one stands in a society seems always related to this historical experience. Where one can be observed is relative to that history. All human efforts seem to emanate from this door. -- source link
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