Being Cheddo

<p>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. <em>Being Cheddo</em> 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.</p><p></p><p>--Jake Homiak PhD Resident Research Associate Department of Anthropology NMNH Smithsonian Institution</p>