When you disturb the earth... Some Perspectives from Caribbean History and Archaeology

When you disturb the earth… Ancestral memory awakens.

Some Perspectives from History and Archaeology 

By, Dr. Tara Inniss

Our ancestors believed that from the moment of birth, we are not only tied to our mothers but also to the land. The invisible and material cord that connects mother to child -- a child's lifeblood before and during birth once severed continued to have profound spiritual power that could be tied to the land. When Bajans gather around the world, they proudly say their "navel string is buried right here" -- in Barbados. Often with great care it is planted under a fruit tree in the belief that it will guarantee the child's future prosperity and self-reliance -- the spiritual and material bond between mother, child and landscape is sealed. Similarly, if care is not taken in burying the umbilical cord and the land around it is disturbed by the forgotten strike of a spade or a foraging animal, it is said that the child will also be disturbed later in life. This is the lesson of our birthright in the Caribbean. It stays with us in a quiet but powerful way throughout life and ends/ begins in death. It is a lesson that never leaves us. 

When you disturb the earth at birth … it follows you.

In a known place of burial, we return to this tacit knowledge. It bubbles to the surface having been suppressed or swallowed to render these meanings powerless. The Empire builders have stripped this knowledge from our consciousness... but alas it is undying. It is there and never leaves us. 

When you disturb the earth in death … it follows you 

When I was a student assisting with rescue archaeology at Fontabelle slave and free burial ground in the 1990s with Dr Karl Watson with contractors ready to bulldoze the city’s historic burial ground to make way for Government’s Small Business Development Centre, I returned daily to my residence at UWI and was immediately and resoundingly told by every woman of Caribbean nationality that I lived with, to leave my trowel and shoes at the bottom of the stairs at the entrance to our building. The only word common to everyone's phrasing was "duppy" and that my tools and shoes had been somewhere with unknown spiritual power. I didn't fight it. It didn't seem irrational. I don't even think there was much discussion and certainly no opposition. I just did as I was requested. These were women my age or younger -- not older women tied to the lore of a past age. 

We were – connected

When you disturb the earth … generations do not forget

The common mythology of archaeology is that archaeologists look for land to disturb -- to excavate. This is no longer the case. Our material culture and its setting are safer and better preserved in situ in an undisturbed landscape. In fact, quite the opposite often occurs for student and teacher archaeologists. It is not easy to find locations to learn the practical skills for archaeology. They often rely on accessing sites that are otherwise being developed -- usually for economic purposes -- to put some of these skills into action. In jurisdictions with robust antiquities or cultural heritage legislation, archaeological assessments are usually required in the development process – sometimes before and after development begins. An archaeologist is there to assess and determine context and value for further archaeology. Often projects are unknowingly strengthened by relying on these capacities. The African Burial Ground National Memorial in New York City, for example, started as a project to build a federal office building. Human remains were found. An archaeological assessment was done which ended up uncovering “the most important urban archaeological project in the United States” – a forgotten/ remembered/ forgotten 18^th century burial site for an estimated 15,000 African-Americans in the heart of New York City. There was some fumbling in planning circles about what to do with the information. But it was the African-American community who spoke out to point the project in a different direction. The civic building was erected partially over the intact archaeological site and a memorial and interpretative centre was built. Archaeology was centred – not destroyed in the development. 

When the people you call archaeologists disturb the earth … people will remember

In the Caribbean we think of funerary architecture as being just that -- something built. Something somewhat lasting on our landscape. Tangible reminders of the past importance of names, people and families. But our ancestors did not have full access to resources to build lasting reminders that are often built in European sand and stone. They used the knowledge of birthright. Spirit was tied to the land and maybe the planting of plants or trees became important signifiers to people who either placed as much value on botanical markers as more lasting ones and/or they just used what was available. Regardless, our monuments to our departed ancestors are not typically marked on our landscapes and in fact, in many cases they no longer exist at all. Prof. Jerome Handler, an American anthropologist conducted an extensive survey of sites labeled “Negro Burial Grounds” or other pejorative or euphemistic names used on the island’s field maps when he was looking for more sites like Newton. He could not find the physical evidence of their survival at the time likely due to deep ploughing as arable land was returned to sugar cultivation. 

We fashioned memorials. You do not see.

But the work and the honor and the sweat are no less there. Limited excavation at Newton in the 1970s revealed that several burials were hand-hewn -- with coralstone scraped out by living family members to bury individuals and families and then backfilled with soil and limestone. That effort to carve a space out of a blood-stained landscape is no less meaningful than obelisks towering in the sky. That effort -- that work is buried, but no less there... and maybe it is even more profound because of the lack of equipment and little free time to build them faster and more opulent. Some burials had intricate assemblages of grave goods. Some were in coffins. Some were not. They are no less there, and Government-funded Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) studies in 2021 and 2022 confirm that the burials are near, on and beyond the boundaries of the site currently owned by the Barbados Museum and Historical Society (BMHS).  

When you disturb the earth of a known sacred space… take great care

We began with birth. We have spoken about death. Let’s return to the sites of living… burial grounds tell us so much. Archives can tell us some more. Voices – we have few. But where people lived can tell us volumes. When you have an opportunity to explore the spaces in which the people you have learned about in a burial ground lived – the sites of slave villages, you do the work of finding, unearthing, and remembering. But first you stand at the threshold of the living and the dead, and you humbly ask to disturb. You feed. You replenish. You honour. You repeat. Living communities share in the work to revere. They are not left out. You certainly do not scrape the earth to build parking lots and monuments to the very people you wish to memorialize without first trying to learn about a past that is so vulnerable and fragmented that it breaks and scatters under the weight of excavators and compactors. 

When you disturb the earth... you ask for permission. 

When the soil – ancestral remains – is removed once again without understanding, you lose opportunities to connect the worlds of the living and the dead. In archaeology, context is everything. When you remove artifacts from the earth surrounding them, they become difficult to date, assemble and interpret in an already broken landscape with an already broken past. 

When you disturb the earth and you ask us now to sift through our past, 

we are like beggars looking for crumbs, who only find dust. 

You can’t feed your people dust.

A few weeks ago after construction work was underway enveloping the Burial Ground of the Enslaved at Newton, coming right up to its boundaries disturbing the land without the permission of our ancestors, large Sahara dust plumes shrouded the island in a haze. I learned from a recent talk delivered by geologist/ geophysicist Dr. Brian Whiting (who has been doing non-invasive geophysical mitigation work at Newton with GPR trying to sense what has been lost) that our very clay soils that intermingle with the limestone base of our island have their origins in Africa. The burial shafts that he has studied in Barbados have a distinctive profile of limestone and clay collapsed on to what is likely human remains. The clay is formed from parent material from Africa which our ancestors mined to make earthen vessels for the manufacture of sugar and daily use as they worked the land day and night (except maybe at Christmas) – the very shards of which we want to find at Newton and elsewhere. It is the same material that our artists today use to create and inspire as they shape a new future. 

When you disturbed and exposed the earth leaving us without answers, 

Africa sent a shroud to cover us because you could no longer 

see.

******

As you may be aware, I have a deep personal and professional interest in the Burial Ground of the Enslaved at Newton. I have worked very closely with the Barbados Museum and Historical Society (BMHS) and communities on low impact projects to interpret, enhance and protect its development as a sacred space and a Site of Memory for the Slave Trade and Slavery. I have served as its Chair of the Newton Development Committee. However, I have written the above and provide the below appeal as an Historian and Heritage Practitioner. I am not speaking on behalf of the BMHS and I hope they will provide their own comment. 

There has been no confirmation of when works began around the Burial Ground for the Enslaved at Newton for Phase One of the Newton Ancestral Memorial, but the Barbados Museum and Historical Society (BMHS) was not consulted when works began. Requests were made to developers prior to development in the planning application process to ensure adequate protections for the burial ground as a sacred space and sensitive archaeological site. Requests were also made to ensure pre-construction archaeological assessments were carried out in the area known as the “Upper and Lower Negro Burial Yard” or slave village and that archaeological monitoring be in place as soon as works began. Developers were also encouraged to engage with multifaith practitioners to ensure that they were included as stakeholders and involved in decision-making regarding the site’s development and management.

A Committee Member saw works underway on Saturday, December 14, 2024 and reported it to Museum officials but by Monday, December 16, 2024 boundaries for the burial ground had been encroached and the areas known as the “Upper and Lower Negro Yard” had been excavated with heavy equipment. No archaeological monitoring was in place. Although the efforts of developers to engage the relevant archaeological experts to assess and mitigate damage are underway, I am concerned about the lack of engagement with the public, especially the faith-based communities who use the site. 

Communities of descendants have not been included in this project. This is a key area of concern for Caribbean archaeologists working with sites with human remains and is encoded in the International Association of Caribbean Archaeologists (IACA) Code of Ethics. 

I look forward to an effort to pause, reflect, acknowledge and heal the land of trauma so that we all can move forward more resolved to honor our ancestors with intention and reverence and to help find peace. If you wish to learn more about how you can make your voice heard, consider reviewing, signing and sharing this petition. 

"History @ The Core" By Dr. Tara Inniss [Extracted from Newton Uncovered Lecture Series]

The Barbados Museum & Historical Society, in collaboration with the Department of History and Philosophy of The University of the West Indies (UWI), proudly presents the 2024 Lecture Series themed: 'Newton Uncovered: Exploring the 21st Century Legacy of the Enslaved Burial Ground at Newton. 'History at the Core,' was presented by Dr. Tara Inniss on Thursday, May 30, 2024.

First. As Chair of the Newton Development Sub-Committee and on behalf of my very enthusiastic and committed committee to welcome you to our lecture and tour series on Newton Uncovered: Exploring the 21st Century Legacy of the Enslaved Burial Ground at Newton. As we continue to celebrate the Barbados Museum and Historical Society’s 90th anniversary, I am very grateful to the Publications and Programming Committee for agreeing to move forward with this lecture series. 

We have been very keen to develop more outreach activities to engage our many communities about the legacies at Newton. I urge you to play a role in learning more. So please, we implore you to Visit. Listen. Learn and be active in your own personal engagement with this past. 

 Second. We must honour the ancestors -- The people who have moved into the ancestral realm at Newton and beyond -- Who knowingly guide us to these discussions tonight. I hope we can centre their experiences and their legacies. 

One of the people who is a part of this story transitioned earlier this year – the archaeologist, Frederick Lange, who helped us to uncover Newton passed away on 17 March 2024 in Tucson, Arizona. 

Now. We begin. With a simple question. What is it that we see when we visit the Enslaved Burial Ground at Newton? I am sure that last week Kevin Farmer described a sloping site with several shak shak trees which to the unprepared visitor looks like an empty field surrounded by fields of the ever-present sugarcane. If you have been before or join us on our tours, maybe that it is what you will see. It may not look like anything special to a visitor. It certainly does not have all the hallmarks of a cemetery space – no tangible visible grave markers. Certainly, no names. Maybe once boundary plants were used to mark sites. Or flowers. Or stones. Or wood markers. Maybe even crosses. But these organic materials have long been lost to time. What we have is a site that we know exists not because Newton plantation is one of the best documented plantations in the island. And, not because archaeologists and anthropologists had any special insight or tools at their disposal to find it in the early 1970s . 

So how do we know what we know – by pure happenstance or maybe if you believe – by divine providence. In a recent oral history interview we conducted with Professor Jerome Handler about Newton and his work at Newton, he really only came to know the site was there when an elderly plantation worker volunteered that “The old people” are buried out there pointing to the field. An elderly man passing by volunteered a seemingly straightforward account of his memory. His family’s memory. Their memory. It was an oral source. 

So when I think of our title for this lecture tonight "History at the Core”, I would like to foreground two aspects of this site’s history and historiography: 1) The importance of oral sources in our History in Barbados and the region; and 2) Who we are centring here tonight is not the people who enslaved the workers at Newton and the documents they left behind (although they will be discussed), but the enslaved themselves. Their stories can be gleaned from the physical remains left to us for investigation through archaeology, and from the sources that were recorded about their lives and a handful of sources they recorded themselves! 

 When you visit Newton, you are likely to surmise – as we have had to do at similar burial sites across the region that the persons buried there remain anonymous. Their names and relations also lost to time. But when you delve deeper into the documented history of Newton in ledgers now kept in the University of London, the Barbados Museum and Historical Society and the Staffordshire Record Office, you quickly realise that those who were buried there were not anonymous at all. 

We know who they are because they are quite meticulously listed in the plantation inventories of enslaved persons in plantation records and slave registers. … but … what is in a name? We cannot be certain that all the names recorded for enslaved men and women and enslaved boys and girls were the names the enslaved gave themselves or who others in the enslaved community knew them as. Enslavers and plantation managers had ultimate authority over how names might be chosen or recorded in documents. This is what becomes so confounding about doing Caribbean genealogy. Captives brought from Africa were often renamed upon their arrival in the Americas. Sometimes European names were selected. Sometimes Greco-Roman names were chosen. Sometimes African day names were used. Sometimes well known, but pejorative names were also used to reference a physical abnormality or personality trait. In the Anglophone Caribbean, very rarely were second names or family names ascribed. Sometimes these names identify family lineages. If you see rare second or supposedly family names used in registers sometimes this can indicate a known father or free-born father on another estate or free relations known to the individuals. Sometimes these names are carried into freedom. And sometimes quite defiantly, they are not!

 And as we know in the Caribbean, one of the most masterful but equally confusing controls placed on naming is being known by the nickname – the public name – the name used to confuse the spirits while keeping your own spiritual identity intact. There are a lot of politics in enslaved naming that I want us to be aware of when we see these names, but in the final analysis – the names we see still represent enslaved individuals and they also represent how individuals related to their families and their communities. It is what we have left. And maybe it is something we can begin with… 

 In many ways, the historical sources line up with archaeology we find at Newton. In terms of the plantation’s demography, Newton was occupied by enslaved Africans and their descendants during the period 1660–1834. Enslaved persons in the English-speaking Caribbean originated from the Gold and Windward Coast and Bight of Benin prior to 1750. The enslaved population was primarily transported to Barbados via the Royal African Company and Dutch traders who captured and bought persons from the Gold Coast of Africa which will include present-day Ghana, Togo, Dahomey and western Nigeria. But like the rest of Barbados enslaved population by 1780, the enslaved community at Newton was largely Creole- or Barbados-born. In the 1679 census, the property was 581 acres with 15 indentured servants and 260 enslaved Africans. By the mid-18th century, the number was 171 and by 1776, 267 enslaved Africans resided at Newton. A number that remained consistent to the end of slavery on August 1, 1834. Enslaved women seemed to outnumber enslaved men on the estate. The age structure is consistent through the period for which data are available and throughout the late 18th-19th centuries. 

The historical health status of the enslaved, especially in terms of nutrition, also line up with the archaeological data. The enslaved were in poor health at Newton – suffering chronic malnutrition in utero to adulthood. Weaning posed an especially traumatic period in children’s nutritional intake – thus why late weaning was a staunchly defended practice for enslaved women in Barbados despite the criticisms of planters who advocated for earlier weaning periods. In addition to disruptions in food supply due to cessation of trade during the American Revolution, Barbadian planters and the enslaved were often frustrated by extended periods of drought or pest burden; lack of credit or money to purchase supplies, etc. -- all resulting in underlying chronic malnutrition which made children and adults more susceptible to infectious disease and high rates of mortality, especially among the infant and child population. In addition to periodic disruptions in food supply or the provision of quality food resources, the enslaved also had to contend with poor access to clean water. With limited surface running water in Barbados, often plantations on the island constructed human-made reservoirs on estates and these were used by the human and animal populations for drinking and washing as well as for irrigation. They were typically not clean sources of water leading to the transmission of mosquito-born diseases as well as those diseases such as typhoid and dysentery from contaminated water supplies. Mortality rates were, therefore, very high on Barbadian estates even though the Barbadian slave population was the only slave population in a sugar plantation context in the region able to reproduce itself by the end of slavery in 1834. Thus, the need for a burial space for the enslaved. 

Enslaved persons on this plantation utilised a sloping pasture area of 4500 square metres with its shallow soil and numerous rock outcroppings for the cemetery of the plantation. Due to the poor conditions for sugar cultivation in the area, it was left undisturbed during the period of slavery on the plantation, a situation that has lasted to the present day. Some 1000 enslaved persons died on Newton plantation from 1670-1833 it is believed that an estimated 570 burials in the cemetery some in low earthen mounds, others in non-mound burials. In terms of occupational profile, the enslaved at Newton were organized into labour gangs typical of the plantation management of the day. There was the first gang which did some of the heaviest labour on the estate; a second gang largely made up of women and young people and a third gang made of enslaved children who did light work around the estate and were usually led by an elderly female driver. Most of the labour on the estate was field or praedial labour. There was also skilled labour on offer on the estates – masons and carpenters as well as domestics, coopers, groomsmen, cooks, even a tailor! According to the 1820 Slave Register, the enslaved women on the estate were domestic workers, nurses, midwives, stockkeepers, etc. 

The enslaved burial ground was part of a wider plantation context typical of medium-large plantation enterprises of the day. In 1796, Newton’s manager described the plantation buildings for the absentee owners, the Lanes in England. There was a manager’s house. Detached from the house was a kitchen, buttery and other offices. There was a poultry yard, stock house, pigeon house, stables. A store and provision house. A cooper’s shop. A blacksmith’s shop, A curing house. A barn or grannery for corn. A sick house or slave hospital. A rum distillery. A boiling house and mills. All made of stone – some with wooden shingles. The Great Hurricane of 1780 had destroyed housing, gardens and trees on the estate, which by Wood’s report had been mostly repaired or reconstructed. The Negro Yard or slave village comprised wattle and daub houses for enslaved workers and after the devastating 1780 hurricane, some more investment was made in board and shingle housing constructed by carpenters and masons on the estate. Later, some stone storm housing may have been constructed as well. 

In the historical records for Newton, we find that the enslaved community liked to party (especially when plantation management was away). They participated in cock-fighting. They participated in the blackmarket of plantation goods like sugarcane, rum, and other commodities and provisions that could be pilfered from plantation stores. I will leave the discussion on the spiritual and religious lives of the enslaved to the panelists and lecturers who will deal specifically with those topics later in the lecture series. But I do want to share some more insights into my own research about family life at Newton. [slide 6] Family relationships are often challenging to reconstruct on estates due to the lack of information or interest of plantation management in the daily lives of the enslaved. However, family and community bonds remained strong even where there were efforts to destroy them. Although plantation managers derided the nature of these relationships dismissing them as ‘dysfunctional’ or ‘non-existent’, they also understood them to be a critical lever in the social control of the enslaved. The Newton and Seawell records allow us to reconstruct some family groups on the plantations [slide 7]. Barbadian planters tended to encourage the formation of family units on estates and even informal marriage to encourage social stability on estates. The idea being that they could reduce the incidence of resistance and rebellion on the plantations if people had stable family lives. Plantation management sought to encourage ‘marriage’ between enslaved residents on estates, but many engaged in unions that took them off the estate to neighbouring plantations. Plantation managers, including those at Newton, often complained about these relationships, as enslaved men and women vied to absent themselves from their estates on Sundays (free days) and even for longer periods of times to visit relations on other estates (Welch "The Slave Family in the Urban Context"; Higman). Gender roles within households that consisted of mothers, fathers and children, and which were sometimes multi-generational. But where fathers were absent, matrifocality was a dominant feature in many Barbadian enslaved holdings. The archaeology at the enslaved burial ground at Newton certainly bears out the existence of family units, and some of the interments excavated revealed what is suspected to be multi-generational family units entombed together over time (Handler and Lange). [slide 8 and 9] Childcare on estates was provided through various means. When enslaved mothers could no longer take their babies into the fields to nurse on demand, infants were often left in the care of older women on the estate while their parents worked. Larger estates had plantation nurseries supervised by older women who looked after infants and small children in a large room with trays on the ground to confine babies. Here are some examples of enslaved family life or community relationships at Newton through the family line of Dissey who was mother and grandmother to 17 enslaved persons on the estate – likely looking after her own grandchildren and others as she superintended the children’s gang. The Enslavers at Newton and their relationship with the enslaved [slide 10] Given that most of the historical documents that we have for Newton plantation were written from the perspective of plantation owners and managers, it does beg us to spend some time looking at their interactions with the enslaved revealing are relationships built on nuance and negotiation/ pride and challenge/ intimacy and distance. [slide 11] By the late 18th century, Newton and Seawell plantations maintained several family and management connections to several plantations on the island. 

Newton is now divided into several mixed agricultural and industrial uses. The factory yard is home to several businesses. The plantation house and other related buildings have undergone significant renovation for modern residential purposes. And the fields are cultivated and managed by the Ward family. Recently, Newton has received the attention of the Prime Minister’s Office and development of a heritage district which would include a slavery museum and an archives and genealogical research centre as well as a substantial memorial space in honour of those buried at Newton. In fact, the Newton Development Committee and the Barbados Museum and Historical Society has been working with the PMO and its ROAD project to bring more attention to the site and make it more visitor friendly. However, we are also conscious that any physical development around the site will have to be monitored to ensure the integrity of the burial ground and its interments. Some recent GPR of the burial space did indicate the possibility of burials just outside the existing boundaries of the site so the BMHS is making sure that there is an adequate buffer in place to ensure that burials at the site are not disturbed. 

 We also know that burial space is getting more attention and is included on tours for locals, students and visitors. But it is also a site that has tremendous spiritual and religious significance for several groups in Barbados including for Spiritual Baptists, Orisha practitioners and the Islamic community. We are working with representatives from a wide range of faiths including Christian churches and Rastafari as well as those already mentioned to ensure that there is continued interfaith dialogue about the significance of the site to peace-building and spiritual practice on the island. 

 The Enslaved Burial Ground at Newton is included as one of the sites in the tentative list World Heritage serial nomination for The Industrial Heritage of Barbados: The Story of Sugar and Rum. In addition to Codrington College, Morgan Lewis Sugar Mill, St. Nicholas Abbey and Mount Gay Distilleries (St. Lucy), the Enslaved Burial Ground at Newton plays a critical part in the global narratives around sugar and rum production from the 17th-19th centuries. The Enslaved Burial Ground at Newton tells the story of how enslaved Barbadians lived, worked and died under the brutal regime to bring a colonial commodity – sugar and rum to global markets! This is often the untold history of industrial heritage sites which often magnify the importance of technology, commerce and innovation but say little about the labour systems that supported them. 

It is the enduring mission of the Newton Development Committee to ensure that the archaeological space of the enslaved burial ground at Newton is developed as a site of memory for the slave trade and slavery. As a place of reflection and communion with the ancestors. That it continues to serve as a testimony to attempts to submerge their identity – even their existence and for it to be finally uncovered and made knowable to us. 

There are not many sites on our landscape in which we can make these connections to our enslaved past, but Newton ought to be preserved at as one of them. Beyond its designation as a site of memory, students in our joint UWI/ University of Glasgow MSc/ MA Reparatory Justice programme explored how the site could also be developed as an International Site of Conscience where visitors can be called upon to participate in the activism around repair and reparations. The Enslaved Burial Ground can be a powerful tool to share the stories of enslaved Barbadians with the world. Through both the sensitive development of the physical site, we can also share these narratives virtually with global audiences. We can use the site(s) to develop educational programmes that harness the creative potential of the site which has already stimulated poetry, plays, filmmaking, art installations and music productions. We can advocate for the repatriation of a digitally accessible archive bringing together the repositories of the University of London, Barbados Museum and Historical Society and Staffordshire Record Office so that we don’t have to travel across oceans to understand this history. We can tell the stories of the people who lived and died at Newton at heritage sites and in communities with connections to Newton in the UK (i.e. Aston Hall, Leyton Grange, Bromley, etc.). We can build a slavery museum and archive near Newton when working with institutions such as universities, Governments, museums, etc who are looking for ways to repair their own history of connections to the slave trade and slavery. Families who are willing to do the same could help us to build institutions that will be committed to uncovering these connections. The Diaspora can have spaces to focus their efforts to expose this history while fostering their own connections to the island.

In conclusion, we have spent some time here tonight centring the lives of the enslaved at Newton and the place memory has in sharing those stories. At our heritage spaces we can continue to prioritize what we know about the lives of enslavers. We could seek to read this landscape as only theirs – with only their stories being told through the large historic structures left behind. OR, we could choose for ourselves to uncover and centre the lives of our ancestors – to find ways of sharing their stories on a contested landscape. At Newton, we have found a tangible site that represents the lives lived and lost during slavery. But there is so much more that can be said about this space and indeed, all spaces on the island which were integrated into the slavery economy. 

 I asked a simple question to begin my talk: What is it that we see when we visit the Enslaved Burial Ground at Newton? But now I want to direct a not so simple question to us here. What and who do we really want to see when Speaks volumes. What and Who we don’t see -- Speaks of enduring silences. We have a choice. We can make the lives of the enslaved and their descendants more visible. We can place a higher value on the contributions that they made to making a modern Barbados. Or, we can choose not to. And keep things the way they are – obscured. Submerged. Silenced. I know what choice I make. 

Do you?