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Secretary-General of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) and Chairperson of the Open Campus Council, Dr. June Soomer, is one who believes that the history of Indigenous and African people, of women, in particular, should form part of the school\u2019s syllabus.<\/p>\n
Soomer, like other historians before her, made that suggestion when she addressed the Dame Eugenia Charles Memorial Lecture at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Open Campus on February 6th.<\/p>\n
She spoke under the theme \u201cUpgrading to first-class: The role and contributions of Dominican women in the Caribbean Reparations Movement.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to be able to bring history back into the schools and when I leave here, I want you all to advocate for Dominica to do that. We have school systems that do not teach the people\u2019s history. We refuse to teach history and when we teach history, we teach European history,\u201d she told her audience.<\/p>\n
She said the reparations movement in the Caribbean as well as globally, is still being intimidated by \u201cthe anti- reparations movement\u201d which views this as a call of greed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, whenever it comes to something for black people, it’s only because we are greedy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Dominicans, according to Soomer, must never be afraid to fight for justice and unless \u201cwe get reparations including and an apology, black people cannot move on\u201d.<\/p>\n
Reparations for slavery is a political justice concept that argues that reparations should be paid to the descendants of slaves from Sub-Saharan Africa who were trafficked to and enslaved in the Americas as a consequence of the Atlantic slave trade.<\/p>\n
Meantime, Soomer said women are more than 50% head of the household and if they are oppressed, the country can never go forward.<\/p>\n
Soomer added that in Dominica, the call for reparations must never leave out the indigenous women as they were dehumanized and made almost nameless and faceless in history.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know how hard it is to find information on indigenous women. You cannot find their names; you cannot find their numbers. It is not in the written documents,\u201d she stated.<\/p>\n
She noted that indigenous women were also part of the first group of maroons in history.<\/p>\n
The historian hastened to add, however, that her lecture is not against white people or men, but about all the things that bring people together.<\/p>\n
\u201c<\/em>If nothing is done against the injustice that women have faced, no one will understand what society is supposed to be about,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n Soomer also encouraged her audience to have a relentless advocacy with all the national reparations committees and encourage a global discussion on the topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Secretary-General of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) and Chairperson of the Open Campus Council, Dr. June Soomer, is one who believes that the history of Indigenous and African people, of women, in particular, should form part of the school\u2019s…","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":244026,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","footnotes":""},"categories":[171,38,16,162,77,235,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-black-history","category-culture","category-educationyouth","category-historical","category-homepage","category-homepage-carousel","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n