Reflections/Jonathan Gramling
Celebrating Africa Fest
The intersectionality of our lives is what makes them so interesting. Our modern society allows us to place ourselves in impenetrable silos that we feel will protect us from the hurt that the world offers and inflicts, not realizing that these silos also serve as our prisons in which we stop living and only exist. We still experience the hurt, but we stop experiencing life. And we become easily manipulated followers of the next leader who puts an image out there to admire that is built on our fears and lost hopes and dreams and leaves us being easily manipulated pawns for the gratification of the “leader’s” own ambitions and desires.
And so it is important for us to continue to live and enjoy the intersectionality of our lives even if it causes us pain and perhaps some suffering from time to time. The intersectionality of our lives are doors of opportunity to expand our horizons and gain a better understanding of ourselves.
So what does this have to do with Africa Fest? Well perhaps the string of experience and intersectionality began back in the late 1980s when as vice-president of the Madison Urban League, I had a hand in hiring Margaret Wamugi who then informed her friend the late Dzigbodi Akyea to apply for a position at the League. And her husband was Aggo Akyea who was the energy behind the first Africa Fest being held at Monona Terrace in 1999, I believe. And I met with Aggo a couple of times so that Aggo could pick my brain about possible sources of funding for Africa Fest. And our friendship — and intersectionality — led to a seven year stint on the African Association of Madison board and membership on the Africa Fest Committee for the past 16 years.
And the intersectionality of those times led to friendships with Samba Baldeh, who is now a State Representative, Ray Kumapayi, the current AAM president, Judge Nia Trammell before she entered her legal career and many others.
And I was talking with a member of the African Women’s Association the other day. And she told me that some of the women and others in the African community refer to me as “An African in a white man’s skin.” We laughed when she said it.
I have to admit that I felt very honored when she said it and it created a responsibility within me that I must live up to. For me, it is a recognition of our common humanity and that we relate to each other as individuals.
But more than that, it is also about my own growth as an individual, that I don’t carry an attitude of “The English in Africa” within me, an attitude of superiority. I have enjoyed my intersectionality with members of the African community and it has made me a better human being with a greater understanding of what truth is.
And I am so fortunate that these relationships have led to friendships where any baggage is left at the door as we sit, talk and work on Africa Fest. I turn 70-years-old on Saturday, August 20th when Africa Fest is being held at McPike Park. Normally for such a monumental milestone in my life, I would do something with my family and that will happen at some point. But when I started to plan something for August 20th, someone reminded me it was when Africa Fest was being held. And so I decided to celebrate at Africa Fest with my other “family,” my African brothers and sisters whom I have gotten to know and care for all of these years.
None of this would have happened if I had rigid ideas of what I was going to do in with my life and spent my time making the world accede to my wishes. Instead, I decided to find everything the world had to offer and follow the opportunities it had to offer.
I am the better person for having experienced the joy and the hurt and the opportunities the world has to offer.
I give my deepest thanks to the African community and look forward to celebrating with you on August 20th. Join us at Africa Fest!