Woman behind viral Emancipation Day moment speaks out: ‘The truth is not popular’

Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor–News­gath­er­ing

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Since Au­gust 1, she’s been im­mor­talised through AI-gen­er­at­ed memes, de­monised by some Gov­ern­ment sup­port­ers us­ing the same tech­nol­o­gy, and even had AI-gen­er­at­ed ear­rings, pen­dants, bags and T-shirts post­ed in her im­age.

But who is she?

Olabisi Olaguke de­scribes her­self as an or­di­nary coun­try girl from San­gre Grande who lat­er mi­grat­ed to New York for school, earn­ing an as­so­ciate de­gree in un­der two years. But mi­gra­tion nev­er weak­ened her ties to home.

She spoke to Guardian Me­dia from her New York home as the sounds of the sirens echoed in the back­ground. She says she stayed close­ly con­nect­ed through reg­u­lar vis­its and com­mu­ni­ca­tion, while keep­ing up to date on lo­cal is­sues.

Eman­ci­pa­tion Day is her an­nu­al pil­grim­age.

But on this par­tic­u­lar day, while lis­ten­ing to Min­is­ter of Cul­ture Michelle Ben­jamin, some­thing changed. As the min­is­ter spoke about African uni­ty and the need to con­tin­ue the strug­gle for free­dom, Olaguke found her­self be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly up­set.

“I got up­set be­cause we, the peo­ple, know. Even though I don’t live there, I have friends who are there. I know when they are broke. I know when they don’t have food. I do. I know those who have chil­dren that I help to send sup­plies for. I mean, the list is end­less.”

She said she nev­er booed Min­is­ter Ben­jamin but heard oth­ers do­ing so. But she was moved to the front of the stage and, when Ben­jamin praised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the Gov­ern­ment, sec­tions of the crowd erupt­ed in boos, jeers and hiss­es.

Trin­bag­o­ni­ans have nev­er been ap­pre­hen­sive about say­ing how they feel in any sit­u­a­tion. But dur­ing mul­ti­ple States of Emer­gency, the pub­lic has be­come a lot more ap­pre­hen­sive about voic­ing dis­sent­ing opin­ions, but Olaguke said some­thing came over her.

“It’s like when spir­it chook you, you know,” she said. “ You say some­thing, and by the time you say it, it’s like it’s too late to pull it back. You can’t pull it back. It’s al­ready like an ar­row that’s been launched. You just can’t pull it back, you know. And it was not dis­re­spect­ful. It was the truth. And some­times stand­ing by the truth is not pop­u­lar. Some­times ut­ter­ing the truth is not pop­u­lar.”

In a coun­try di­vid­ed deeply along po­lit­i­cal lines, she has be­come ei­ther the hero or vil­lain in the pub­lic’s eye de­pend­ing on their po­lit­i­cal per­sua­sion.

But she didn’t know that for a long time. Two of her phones were down for weeks, so the memes, cheers and jeers on­ly reached her sec­ond-hand.

“When I saw some com­ments that peo­ple said, ‘Oh God, this woman make my pores raise,’ I knew then when I heard that. I saw that. I read that a cou­ple of times, and like I said, I had to go through a third par­ty be­cause peo­ple had to send stuff for me.”

She has al­so heard how the words, “We will re­mem­ber how you promised us food to­mor­row while we starve to­day,” have been in­ter­pret­ed.

As an ed­u­ca­tor her­self, she of­ten has to teach her stu­dents what a metaphor is.

“So when I am hear­ing that I am not starv­ing, I un­der­stand that I am not starv­ing, and I do have a few ex­tra pounds, and I can freely ad­mit that I could hap­pi­ly lose them. But they find their way back,” she said with a hearty laugh.

She al­so takes the al­le­ga­tions of po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion in stride.

“I am not a PNM. I am a peo­ple per­son. I am a per­son for the peo­ple. Whether it’s PNM, UNC, NJAC, Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship, or any one of those par­ties that will do right by the peo­ple.”

And she re­minds peo­ple that she’s an equal-op­por­tu­ni­ty heck­ler.

Two years ago, she al­so ap­proached for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley dur­ing Pan Semis.

“Some­times it’s hi­lar­i­ous be­cause I say peo­ple are very con­ve­nient be­cause Dr Kei­th Row­ley got it from me live on the Greens two years ago. I gave it to him, like, gave it to him.”

Olaguke at the time raised is­sues with him about how he planned to up­lift young black peo­ple.