Today, we had a packed schedule, so we couldn't write our questions before the speech given by Ms. Brown. Instead, I remember Gwen saying to kind of talk about the speech and its historiography.
I really enjoyed the speech we received. It was fun, informative, and Ms. Brown is a great and engaging speaker. I wish we would have had this speech upon arrival, but I guess I should have done my homework about Jamaica on my own time.
That aside, it was great to hear a Jamaican tell their own story. In my visual journalism class, we learn about ways of seeing. It's brought up in class a lot that you really can't understand a culture or a person without first understanding their way of seeing the world. I guess you could call it the closest thing to walking in their shoes. Well, this was what happened to me when listening to Ms. Brown. I'm sure that listening to someone else, a Non-Jamaican, tell the story of how the country came to be would be much different.
Part of historiography is who writes the history. Usually, people in power tell the history. Up until 50 years ago, the Jamaican people were not in power. Now that they are, it was refreshing and inspiring to hear someone who lived (assumedly) through Independence tell a story that is prideful, not vengeful.
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