The title of this film comes from a poem by a friend of mine in The Bahamas, Pat Rahming in the photo to the left. Pat is a poet, playwright, songwriter and singer and an architect and lives in The Bahamas. I have used this poem for years in performances.
My Great Grandpa was slave,
i een like it but it so
but even slave got history too
i got a right to know what tribe they come from
where dey live and what dey family name
i know dat ’bout da master, da slave deserve da same
we history just een startin late, we wasn’t always slave
an what i wouldn’t give to know
how my folks used to live
before da trip from Africa,
before da drumbeat change,
before de ol’ men cry for loss
before da trees was strange
i know ’bout king and queen
an who succeed da throne
i study english civil war just like it was my own
an i could trace some English name back to da Norman war
yet still nobody wan’ me ask what my name was
before da chasin and da catchin and da sellin without shame
dis een too much to ask for suh
i jus wan know my name
Poem by Patrick Rahming, The Bahamas