Let me start by saying that I am a fan of Nelly Cooman. She has been a real trailblazer in the field of running. Whether you are a fan of hers or not, two times world champion in the 60 meters indoor, six times European and no less than 15 times Dutch champion, commands respect. You and I cannot do the same for her.
Let me start by saying that I am a fan of Nelly Cooman. She has been a real trailblazer in the field of running. Whether you are a fan of hers or not, two times world champion in the 60 meters indoor, six times European and no less than 15 times Dutch champion, commands respect. You and I do not copy her, but that does not mean that I share her ideas.
Her statements in the program De Nieuwe Maan, for which she has attracted the hatred of many, honestly did not surprise me either. The former sprinter cannot and does not want to bear the burdens of her ancestors, because she did not experience them herself. She continued with "The VOC has also done good things." I was very surprised by this statement, but we will come back to that.
There are enough people, Surinamese, who hold the ideas of Nelly Cooman. They are convinced that the slave past is too long ago to have any influence today.
I have to admit that I, who grew up in Suriname quite privileged, had to think long and hard about this. There was no inch in my way to achieve what I wanted. At least that's what I believed, until I went curly.
I dare say that Nelly Cooman had the same hair struggles as I did. As an athlete I can remember her with weaves, a lot of false hair woven in. Nowadays weaves are worn as “protective styles”, but certainly in those days you almost only wore weaves to camouflage the fact that your hair had broken off. I am not saying that to embarrass Mrs. Cooman, I have done it myself. After my hair had broken off a hundred times due to relaxers, I was ashamed and camouflaged the bald spots with weaves. It is an experience that almost all Black women have in common. A weave is not really a disgrace by the way because super athletes like Serena Williams also wear weaves, nothing wrong with that.
What we do need to consider is that weaves, apart from Andre Agassie , are practically only worn by black women in sports. It is an undeniable fact that hides a piece of history behind it, which is still best concealed today.
Black people are the only race in the world that does not have the right to wear their hair naturally. All hairstyles that come with kinky hair such as Dreadlocks, Cornrows and Afros are stereotyped and not accepted in the workplace.
Remember the twelve-year-old ballerina who was suspended because her mother refused to straighten her hair? Here's the link: Is it OK to dance with frizzy hair?
As a result of this unwritten rule, as many as 73% of black women suffer from hair breakage and hair loss due to all the straightening to get their hair smooth according to the imposed norm of Western society.
At the UN with Cynthia McLoud
This is just one of the burdens that are directly related to the slavery period of 300 years ago, when our hairstyles were already declared banal, offensive and obscene. The shame of our unique curls is pretty deeply ingrained and the consequences are not only still clearly visible today, they are happily maintained by all kinds of institutions that prefer to use the outdated standards.
It is a burden I would absolutely not want to carry if I had a choice, but it hurts every time I see a ten year old girl with broken straightened hair. It is a burden that we all carry consciously or unconsciously, from ordinary citizens to top athletes. The shame, the pain, the sadness. And this is just the piece of history that our hair carries with it.
I don't know if it is necessary to go into the VOC story any further. According to Wikipedia the VOC was the most profitable company ever with mostly soldiers in service to enforce trade and keep other trading partners at bay. If all goes well you understand what this means.
Cynthia Mcloud, our Surinamese guru when it comes to history, gave us a glimpse of the slave monument at the United Nations in New York when she told us that the scriptures said that you could smell the Dutch boats arriving at that time.
The chained ones not only had to relieve themselves on the spot, they didn't even bother to clean everything, even if it was only once in a while, during the entire voyage. This puts the VOC ships in a completely separate category, but perhaps I have never seen or heard the other side of the story. My counter question to Nellie Cooman, for whom I still have just as much respect, would be, what good did the VOC do for Suriname?