Donisha Rita Claire Prendergast Instagram – Reminder to self: We must Rebel against any system or structure which distracts and misinforms our youth. One of the most liberating moments for me this week on the We Will Rize Together project at the Haile Selassie High School, was working with a bunch of youth from the Payne land community who came to volunteer, and see what little treasures they could find. I explained that we were fixing the library and saving some books, but some would be destroyed. I wanted to be clear with them that books aren’t garbage, but there is great symbolism in tearing up and discarding a bunch of old, outdated neo-colonial literature. The kind that teaches our children how to grow cotton, and others with images that portray the Africans who were stolen and sold into slavery as savage and backward. Books that have done nothing to empower I&I sense of self. @ms_laurynhill song ‘I find it hard to say…Rebel’ kept repeating loud in my head. ‘I find it hard to say that everything will be alright. Cause my own eyes can see through all your false pretenses. As history repeats so foul that you can taste it…. We must destroy in order to rebuild. Wake up! You might as well. Or are you satisfied? Are you satisfied?… Rebel!’ Until the curriculum reflects more about who we are and all the things we have been, we will never be who we are supposed to be. A people without the knowledge of their past history and culture is like a tree without roots Garvey says. I’m still writing this message in English, the language of the colonizers. The second language I was taught in school is Spanish, because Colombus and his friends never really left Jamaica. I don’t know my Mother tongue, or which village in which country in Africa my ancestors came from. I’m still fighting to remember all the things they wanted us to forget. Why don’t you Rebel?.., Or are you satisfied? #miseducation #liberation #africandiaspora #createclassroomseverywhere #emancipation #rightyourstory #wewillrizetogether #Buildcomeunity #dobetter