Vere's Information Highway

I recently saw an article indicating the Ontario Government will recognize Aug 1 as emancipation day. So what’s next?
We should seize the moment to rekindle out past, and keep our history current for generations to come.
I believe this is an opportunity for black folks to get together to celebrate this event. Slavery had and still has its effect on black folks in Canada, the US, the UK, France and anywhere you find black folks residing.
We started some thing here in Toronto to celebrate that event. It is called Caribana. Of course most of you know what happened to that. We did not even have a chance to honour the 200 years celebration at Caribana.
However all is not lost. We can do something to correct the errors we made, when some in our community, believe their ancestors alone were slaves. The “we thing” attitude has to go. All black folks are in this boat together. Many people celebrating Caribana today are not reading from the same sheet as laid out by the pioneers of this event.
There are carnivals all over the world, but the celebration means different things to different people. However to black folks it’s a celebration of freedom, and the drums beat louder wherever there are black folks. No one has a monopoly on carnival.
This recognition of emancipation day in Ontario has give Caribana a new lease on life. Let us join with people in Cambridge and areas populated by the descendants of slaves from U.S and create a real black people celebration.
If it means moving the celebration to Cambridge or the surrounding areas, so be it. We must take this opportunity to build the bridges we destroyed when we lost our way.
Before some people throw the idea in the garbage, please give it some thought. We can unite black folks throughout all Ontario with one swoop. I noticed some of our black politicians have finally awakened to the idea of uniting black voters to a common cause. I hope they put the community first, before their own ambitions.
The celebration can take many forms. We can still have our street festival as well as picnics, church services, dance competition, steel competitions, arts and craft show and many more events.
It is an opportunity to make emancipation stand out in the black communities in Ontario. I hope the black community media will pick up on this issue and get involved. They could put some resources together to ensure we get the right people to steer this ship in the right direction. It is an opportunity for the folks at Pride, Share and Camera to work together for a common community cause. Get rid of the hand-ups about each other and put their differences aside for just this time. I hope some one will take the lead and invite the others to a meeting and ask, “What can we do to utilize this emancipation window that has opened in front of us.