School corridors lined with jubilant children, infectious smiles and fluttering Guyana flags and not a chance this was for a questionable royal visitor as they made us do when we were children, but for our very own. One of us. Letitia Wright’s visit to Guyana is bound to make any Guyanese feel a sense of national pride and joy, even those who have left the shores for a different path and found themselves adapting a phase 2 edition of nationhood.
As I frantically clicked through the Ministry of Education’s pictures of Wright’s school visits, completely in my feelings, I wondered to myself if this was what Jamaicans felt every time one of their countrymen or women sprinted across a finish line or they heard their music blasting from speakers and in festivals in places far from their homes. What an incredible feeling to constantly have, I wish that I could bottle it.
Best known for playing the role of Shuri in Marvel’s Black Panther films, the BAFTA Rising Star (2019) is also known for her role as Nish in the “Black Mirror” episode – ‘The Black Museum’. Wright, who has also had guest roles in Top Boy, Chasing Shadows and Coming Up, left Guyana at the tender age of 7.
Anyone looking at Wright’s countless graceful interviews, in which she always manages to transfer a deep desire to live your true self, can’t help but wonder how many others there are just like her waiting and hoping for a conducive environment for their skill and talents to be nurtured. While Wright’s visit is a cause for national celebration, it is also cause for deep reflection on the current state of the arts, race, migration and harnessing the talents of young children. Almost every West Indian parent believes the ideal and only career options for their children lie somewhere between becoming a doctor, lawyer or engineer. These careers, for the most part, are representative of financial safety and play into encouraging respectability politics and prestige. Perhaps it’s the post-colonial mindset that sees us continuously seeking to prove our smarts and talents whilst tapping into a somewhat white collar career. Perhaps it is an easier option than applying pressure for change in the creative sector. Whatever the reason, all talents are necessary and all are needed and if we want a wholesome society we need more than lawyers, doctors and engineers to inspire. We can’t engineer our children’s lives based on our dreams and our insecurities. There are no winners when this happens.
The elephant in the room is that migrating for a healthier, safer and economically secure life is still a main determining factor as to why people leave these shores. Our nurses leave, our teachers leave and obviously they do so for what they believe to be a less burdensome life. Guyana is an absolute melting pot when it comes to talent, more than we would ever need as a nation, but most of that gets bolted out due to corruption, nepotism, and tribal politics and not everyone is built to navigate such chaos nor should they have to. Excessive migration means a slow withering of our sense of nationhood, culture and identity. We desperately need to sort our house out and not just the exterior and the extractive industries.
We can’t claim as a society that we nurtured Wright’s talent. The performing arts sector in Guyana is still seen as such a scorned and stigmatized trade to engage in. Often being referred to as not the serious career path unless of course you have gained acceptance in predominantly foreign white spaces which was the case a few years ago with Lisa Punch with Rising Star. While a lot of acceptance and non acceptance is rooted in anti-blackness and classism, Wright’s rise to stardom is the gentle nudge that we need not to play into the game of stigma. It is of much cultural and ethnic importance, particularly for young Black girls and women in Guyana, who face marginalization and perpetual violence at the hands of the state.
Welcome to the ranks of role models our children can emulate. We are proud of you Dr Letitia Wright, for more reasons than one. Continue to fly our flag ever so high.
