“No people can reach full maturity while burdened, generation after generation, with a feeling of inferiority.” — Anton de Kom, Wij Slaven van Suriname, 1934
Today is Keti Koti. The chains are broken.
I am not Surinamese. But I am a descendant of enslaved people in the United States — so I feel a deep connection to this day and its meaning.
On July 1, 1863, slavery was “abolished” in the Dutch colonies — yet the freed slaves were forced to work the plantations ten more years.
“Reparation” was given to the enslavers to account for the “assets” they lost: 300 guilders per human being.
Nothing went to the enslaved – they paid for this historic atrocity with centuries of hard labor, lost dignity, and deep trauma.
Freedom was never a gift. It is paid for, and then defended daily, or it is taken away.
Systems built to dehumanize one group never stay contained.
What is practiced on the few is turned on the many. Standing for someone else’s freedom is self-preservation for all of us. This is why we commemorate and celebrate this day with music, singing, dancing, speeches, and human connection.
There are people working right now to distort the facts and change this history to a narrative that implies – “it wasn’t that bad”. Every fascist and xenophobic movement begins the same way: by editing the record of who counts as human.
And now we are teaching history to machines and algorithms.
What we write and preserve becomes the training data explaining the world to the next generation. Distortion scales, moving at the speed of AI systems that only process what we give them, they don’t know they’re wrong.
Accuracy is not just respect for the past. It is infrastructure for the future.
I think about my oldest child, Rachel Fuqua and future generations. The version of the truth that survives us is the world they will inherit.
Everyday (not just on special days like this) we must continue to do the hard work of telling the truth, remembering the past, honoring the righting of terrible wrongs, and evolving to focus on leaving this earth better than we found it.
Speak up when it costs you. Stand up for the people who aren’t in the room or who aren’t at the tables of power. Or help them build their own rooms and tables.
Keti Koti. The chains are broken. Our job is to keep them that way.