26 février 2025
Pleins feux sur l’excellence noire : rencontre avec Susan
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Dans le cadre de notre série sur le Mois de l’histoire des Noirs, nous avons le privilège de partager un poème puissant de Susan, Agente d’approvisionnement à LCO, qui reflète son parcours et le lien profond qu’elle entretient avec ceux qui l’ont précédée.
À travers ses mots, elle nous invite à voir son parcours à travers les yeux de ses ancêtres – ceux dont les luttes, les sacrifices et la résilience lui ont permis de grandir en étant consciente et fière de ses racines. Son poème est un hommage à l’histoire, à l’identité et à l’héritage que nous portons tous en nous.
Susan a partagé ces mots avec nous après avoir lu son œuvre lors d’un événement du staff:
e suis si heureuse d’avoir pu partager mon histoire avec les yeux, les oreilles, les cœurs et les esprits des personnes présentes dans la salle. Je me suis sentie à la fois honorée et nerveuse. L’écrire était une chose, la transmettre en était une autre. Mes mains tremblaient et mon cœur battait la chamade, mais ce moment me dépassait. J’ai souri parce que je sentais que les gens écoutaient vraiment, qu’ils s’intéressaient à moi, qu’ils se connectaient. J’ai choisi un style d’écriture oral, parce que l’expression orale est synonyme de rythme, de profondeur, d’émotion et de connexion. Comme l’a dit Maya Angelou, « les gens peuvent oublier ce que vous dites, mais ils n’oublient jamais ce que vous leur faites ressentir ». Lorsque j’ai terminé par « Asé, Asé, Asé » et que j’ai entendu les voix me répondre, ce moment a été décisif ! Ce n’était pas seulement ma reconnaissance, c’était la nôtre.
Le mois de l’histoire des Noirs est une période de commémoration, mais aussi de reconnaissance, de célébration et de poursuite. Il s’agit de voir le chemin parcouru et de reconnaître celui que nous pouvons encore parcourir ….. ensemble.
Je suis reconnaissante d’avoir eu l’occasion de partager ce moment. Je suis reconnaissante d’avoir pu le partager avec vous tous ! J’espère que cela nous rappellera à tous de continuer à écouter, à apprendre et à honorer les histoires qui nous façonnent.
Susan
L’œuvre de Susan est seulement disponioble en anglais.
Before I begin, I pour libations.
I pour for the ones who came before me, whose footsteps paved the way.
I pour for the ones whose names were lost to time but whose spirits remain with us.
I pour for the warriors, the healers, the builders, the storytellers.
I pour for the mothers and fathers, the stolen and the free, the lost and the found.
I pour for those who crossed oceans in chains.
I pour for those who resisted in quiet ways and loud.
I pour for those who could not see this moment but dreamed of it still.
African Ancestral Acknowledgment
When I was asked to do the African ancestral acknowledgment,
I hadn’t recognized my own entry—
An entry of the ancestors.
An entry back through a door that once had no return.
An entry into our ledger.
Until a DNA test came along, I didn’t even have this.
No records.
No passed-down names.
No whispered stories of where we began.
Only fragments.
Only questions.
Only silence.
But I see it now.
And I stand here today because of those who came before me.
I acknowledge them—not just in memory, but in presence.
Not just in survival but in legacy.
Not just in struggle but in strength.
I speak for the names I do not know.
I honour the faces history refused to show.
I acknowledge my family—
the builders, the protectors,
the ones who carried more than just weight…
But, because they did—here I stand.
For many, family history is written in stories, traditions, and names passed down.
For me?
It stops.
It stops at a bill of sale.
A bill of sale for an unnamed, likely Negro, 22, Buck,
Strong. Illiterate. Farm hand. Good inventory.
That is where my lineage is recorded—not in a family tree, but in a ledger.
But let me make something clear—
That paper? It does not define him.
He took a name.
Because of him, I am me.
I do not carry his pain.
I carry his power.
I do not carry his silence.
I carry his voice.
The Unseen, The In-Between, The Unforgotten
Some walked unseen—
too Black for one, not Black enough for the other.
Some swallowed their truth,
tongues tied in survival, fists wrapped in silence.
Some wore faces that did not fit,
passing between worlds that never claimed them,
standing at doors that swung both ways,
never fully home, never fully gone.
But even in the hush of history—
they were here.
Even in the places where light dared not go—
they endured.
They folded sorrow into song.
They braided maps into the hair.
They turned whispers into weapons
and quiet steps into revolution.
They were the in-between,
but they were never in doubt.
Because their story did not disappear in the dark.
It lives.
It moves.
It breathes—here, now, in me.
More Than Survival – We Are the Acknowledgment
Too often, when we speak of our people, we only speak of struggle.
But our history is not just what was done to us.
It is what we did despite it.
We built with hands that were told to break.
We learned with minds they tried to keep voided.
We rose—again and again—where we were meant to fall.
We did not just survive.
We became.
We are the architects of what comes next.
We are the ink rewriting the narrative.
We are not echoes of a broken past.
We are the unshaken future.
As I wind this down
My father fought a war on two fronts.
A physical one overseas.
And one when he returned home.
And with those same hands—
hands that fought for a country that did not wave a flag for him—
he placed a Black baby doll in mine.
Not from a department store.
Not from a brand that suddenly found diversity,
but from the hands of our own.
Because when Black Barbies didn’t exist,
he made sure I saw myself.
He made sure I understood that who I am is enough.
That I am not erased.
That I am not invisible.
And when he reached out his hand to me—
It wasn’t just five on the Black hand side.
Not just a dap…
Dignity.
And Pride.
So, Let This Be My Entry
Not in a ledger of ownership
but in a record of resilience.
They set the price,
but we marked our value.
They tried to close the book,
but we cracked the spine.
What they started in ink,
we made a bloodline.
Their entry…..A receipt.
This record….Mine.
Asé, Asé, Asé
