I have a fixation on the beauty of gyms. It’s a basketball player and coach thing, I think. A fetish that grows over the years competing in many hideous, slippery and dusty gyms. In Quebec, beautiful gymnasiums are rare. But some of them have that little je ne sais quoi that makes them cherished as sacred places.
This is the case with the main gymnasium of Séminaire Saint-Joseph, in Trois-Rivières. A place so magnificent that it has received a nickname: the Garden. Its brick walls. Its stands in antique wood. Its shiny floor. Its broad forest green lines marking the perimeter of the basketball court. Its large windows let in the light of day. The sports community that has frequented this place will surely say that it almost deserves to be recognized as a heritage place.
The Garden is dear to my memories since I have competed there, as a player and as a coach, dozens of times. It keeps preciously within its walls a number of cries, tears, laughter, sweat.
I’m telling you about it because I saw photos of the Garden on social media a few days ago. As I gazed at them, I felt nostalgia, but above all joy and pride, because these photos depicted a young student-athlete in all her splendor. A student of Saint-Joseph Seminary beaming in her Green and Gold uniform.
In one of the photos, we see her knees bent, arms widely extended, hair tied, eyes determined, ready to execute the best defense against the opposing team. On another, she attempts a throw, her long hair falling over the number on the back of her uniform. Then there is also this photo where, celebrating the victory, the young student-athlete is buried by her teammates. You can only see her hair. Who do they belong to?
This hair is the hair that a police officer shamelessly pulled in Quebec City on the night of November 26 to 27. It is the hair of Silosina Nekingame, a victim of police brutality of such violence as I can hardly describe it. You may not need to do that either, since you have surely seen the video exposing the scene or heard the news about it.
I would bet my shirt that after reading my description of the young Trifluvienne treading the floor of the Garden, very few of you imagined that it could have been the teenager recently victim of police violence. There is a cognitive dissonance here that I find striking, and I am no exception myself.
While looking initially at the disturbing images of the police intervention with regard to the young woman, I saw a victim of the police force. I saw a person who did not deserve the outrageous treatment he received that night. I was rightly scandalized. But none of my thoughts at this time opened up to the richness of this teenage girl’s life, despite the injustices.
Faced with this observation, I would like to invite myself to a more complete celebration of black life and of human life. Because life, in its richest expression, supplants the failings of modern political, judicial, economic, financial and media systems.
In my opinion, the stupidity and violence deriving from these systems deserve to be combated. For example, the state does not stop killing seniors in CHSLDs. He also allowed himself, the 1er last December, to beat up in the street Maurice Verjin, a man of 73 years, by the intervention of the police force. It puts me in good shape. Excuse the bad pun.
At the same time, I want to remind myself that our existence is not confined to the oppressions we suffer. Listening recently to author Bayo Akomolafe, I understood that by fighting against prison, I run the risk of building myself into a prisoner. However, there is another paradigm. That of our magnificence, which escapes the clutches of human absurdity.
The image of Silosina helps me see life from this angle. Because these African braids that we almost snatched from him are a very symbol of black life which thwarts slavery.
Frantz Fanon said: “The density of history does not determine any of my actions. I am my own foundation. And it is by going beyond historical, instrumental data that I introduce the cycle of my freedom. ”
According to the tragedies of the news, I like to think that we are beautiful and beautiful in our lives. And if I ever forget it, I have every confidence that during the holiday season, the smell of the bouyon, the intensity of the rara, the sweetness of the konpa and the taste of the kremas will serve as a reminder.