HISTORY ISN’T A STORY, SOLIDIFIED IN AMBER—SOMETHING FOR US TO SIMPLY ADMIRE OR MEMORIZE. IT’S CONTEXT. IT IS THE OUTLINE THAT ALLOWS THE PRESENT TO BE TRULY VISIBLE.
George McCalman was born on the island nation of Grenada. He immigrated to the United States with his mother when he was eight, settling in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. He was raised to differentiate his identity—as a Black immigrant—from Black Americans who were born tangled up in the vestiges of American slavery. “Being West Indian, my family always had a very kind of consistent view...that we could never rely on white people. Black Americans were more stuck with that kind of dynamic, and it was our role to circumvent that—that we had to own our own property, that we had to buy our houses,” says McCalman. “I lived in a neighborhood in Brooklyn that was, and remains, primarily West Indian, because people own their homes….New York West Indians are very indomitable and also very kind of snobby. We are just kind of like, ‘Please, American racism, whatever with that business.’ But I also grew up knowing that colonialism had really warped black West Indians and that we had our own demons to slay. They had a blind spot about colonialism and the effect that it had had on us and how it had really poisoned our own culture.”
“My family was very respectful of American history in knowing why Black people were disenfranchised,” says McCalman. “But my cousins and I, it was drilled into our heads that that was not the end of the story, that that was not acceptable for us to be caught in that.”
Dr. Aisha Mays grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. “Kansas City was a very Black city and had a very strong Black community and Black consciousness and presence. And I lived in a Black community and went to a Black school. And then we went to Oakland when I was in middle school. So moving to another very conscious Black city and black community went to a Black school and everything felt like roses,” says Dr. Mays, who was an outgoing, outspoken student who excelled in her honors classes.
But then just before she started high school, her family moved south, to the area now known as Silicon Valley. “That was the first time that I had gone to a school that was predominantly white...It was also the first time that I consciously witnessed students of color, Black students and other students of color, being treated differently simply because they were students of color.”
Peter Limata moved to the Bay Area from Zambia when he was 27 to complete his education and become a certified elementary school teacher. “Moving from Zambia and coming here, my perspective completely changed. (In Zambia) I was in a place where I was the majority. Everywhere I looked there were engineers, there were teachers—there were people who look like me. You didn't even think about it. Then when I moved here, it was all of a sudden it was like, oh, there are these things that you have to learn about. So it was a wake up call for me,” says Limata. “Being around and talking to Black people in the U.S., and realizing how much people have been around systemic racism, and injustices—it was for me, a realization that the America I had seen on TV was very different. Thinking that being African-American was all about being cool and free, and then realizing it was not the reality at all.”
For Peter, the process of recognizing and dismantling the stereotypes he brought with him from Zambia extended to other marginalized groups as well, such as the LGBTQ+ community. “I feel like (Zambia) is an extension of the Bible Belt, really—we're very much a Bible people,” says Limata, who struggled with how people from his hometown would respond to him reading stories about gay rights and gender identity. “I'm fortunate that my mom was very open-minded and liberal for being in a country like Zambia,” he says, explaining why he personally embraced the causes of the LGBT community—he just wasn’t sure how his now global audience would respond.
“I remember reading the first story talking about gender identity,” says Peter, who worried about all the Zambians from back home tuning into his Facebook Live. “‘What are people going to think?’ But then in the end it was like, look, I don't think it's about what people think. It's about doing the right thing. And so I stepped up and the response has been great. And it shows that when you speak up, when you do the right thing, things will be in place and you'll be a lot happier. But it’s been lots of challenges, lots of evolving, lots of learning.”
