BEING CHEDDO continues the Pan-Afrikanist saga of Clem Marshall’s previous work Talking Cheddo.
Manga Clem Marshall conducts ongoing research into the intersection of language, culture and race. From inside the circle of his ancestral Cheddo (Freethinking) tradition in the Senegambian region of West Africa, he lectures on Afrikan art, language, culture and race. He was named 'Teacher of the Year' for his work in Sociology at York University, Toronto; taught Community Arts at Ryerson University; pioneered the series Learning to Love Africa Through Her Art for the Art Gallery of Ontario and was a lecturer in the prize-winning Ontario Science Centre program, 'A Question of Truth'.
“Linguists have long understood that language and lexicon construct our sense of self and place in the world while at the same time reinforcing existing structures of power. Menkowra Clem Marshall explores this understanding for the African world and global hierarchies of power that have always placed Blacks at the bottom. Being Cheddo deconstructs the myriad ways in which the language of the colonizers has “naturalized” the dehumanization and subordination of African peoples-masking the unspeakable traumas to which they have been subject through enslavement, colonialism and White supremacy as well as their resistance to these conditions.”