New year, new energy

Compliments of the new year to you all. Once again we have been granted an opportunity to start afresh, correct our mistakes, go in the way we planned and initiate the change we need to make the world a better place. Today I will not dwell into any issues, I just want to let someone know that you might be feeling defeated but remember it’s just a feeling, one you can control if you keep up a positive attitude. Positive attitude will take you to a higher altitude. Embrace who you are, no one is entitled to shape your future, take control, start now. Let’s do this again one more time with a jumpstart. Your life is your race, you only compete with the old you to become a better person. It does not matter how many times you fall because you get back on your feet more times than you fall. Don’t stay on the ground. Yes, YOU CAN DO THIS and who else to do it but YOU?

#newbeginningsmotivation

Slaying in slavery

I am sure by now you must think she is racist but hey I am black too so lets talk in-house issues as Africans, as blacks. Many like to think that it is our forefathers who where in slavery but newsflash so are we and we are way in too deep, we have become comfortable and even know how to rock slavery. No chains in sight, no man kicking us to do what no human can reasonably do, no one denying us our human rights and so you must be thinking what sort of slavery is she on about. Winning the war is not outnumbering your enemies and killing them before they can reach their fortress, it’s attacking your opponent’s mind and have huge numbers playing puppets on your show for the rest of their miserable lives and they will even pass it on to generations to come.

When many African countries were colonised, we failed to realise that the white men also colonised our minds yet of all wars that were fought, that was the war we never attempted to fight (war of the mind). We failed to erase the real blueprint and embraced it thinking we are free and better off but checkmate, that was the worst move ever made. Yes they introduced us to a better life but it was all on us to pick what was right and discard what was wrong for us. Could they be right when they look at an African man and despise him? I will use the case of African countries i am aware of and as endless as the list may be i will just address a few issues. Let me break a few points down in an effort to shed more light.

Did you see how education was introduced to us? and oh up to this day we even adhere to the British standards, and heaven knows we learn so fast and have been considered intelligent but intelligence based on book knowledge without practical experience and discovery of ways that work for us is in fact void intelligence, just knowledge. We even judge each other’s intelligence by how fluent we are in speaking English. Our very own native language they can’t use even in our own interviews (such pity). Go to China or France they have their news, five star movies, official language, music all rocked in mandarin or french respectively. Their universities even provide you degrees in their own language but show me universities in Africa that offer degrees in their native language (i will be waiting, It’s how i learn).

People we had our way of worship but they sneaked christianity into our culture, we even abandoned our  own culture. Not that christianity is even a bad thing but look at how we have become the most religious continent yet the most poorest of them all, does that even ring a bell. We are so guided by church rules or rather dogmatics than we will ever be guided by the bible they introduced. So religious we go to church every Sunday and any other day of the week but when we are not at church, we are free to sin (i even hear some say be straight for once its a Sunday) like christianity has a timetable. Too religious than we are christians, we have rules so different, one church to the other and that church thinks its so superior to the other yet they all claim to be Christians. Others got this bible however, now they think money will appear in their pockets without working for it yet the same bible tells us to work with our very own hands (how twisted). Give them miracles and you have established your own followers (ah this way you like easy things will cost you). Need i mention the way these miracle practitioners suddenly become so rich and build empires on the little earnings you give up in the name of seeding. Oh i believe so much in God but just not in the ways you have designed prayer and worship sessions. Where did we get all this, you wonder. They brought us the bible through colonisation but alas the student became the master 🤦🏽‍♀️.

We have become obsessed with white weddings such that after a man pays the bride price (lobola), culturally that is what we call a traditional wedding, the bride still won’t go and the bride’s parents even have the audacity to keep her from living with her husband who just did the right cultural thing until they have a white wedding even if the guy marrying her is not white, (such double standards 🙄). Can we at least pick a struggle, go traditional or go white. Those traditional weddings are so remarkable, an amazing site to see, so colourful and defines us, it hurts to see that part of us fading away, it really does. Oh did i mention how we over dance at these white weddings we plan. We are great dancers no lie and have tried to sneak in our moves in the white wedding and by the end of the first dance the bridal team is all sweaty and tired, they need to refresh and change into second dresses (oh Jesus, the expense though). Had we our African costumes that are well air rated we wouldn’t even think of changing. We are so ahead of ourselves. If we don’t embrace who we are then who will?

Our law system has not changed from what they left us, oh yes and we have well learned law practitioners who at the end of the day are not even recognised until they take the international bar exams, (we all know where they get it from). And as far as they are concerned our lawyers are learned enough to practice law in their respective nations, the reason why until tomorrow most of them will keep dreaming of going to Harvard and get the real thing with their seal on it (Its just the sad truth). Oh and our lovely engineers they are so learned, what i don’t know is are we that irreparable they just cannot come back home and engineer with our resources and in our environment?, but they will tell you about low salaries here that cannot match their level of profession. They could be right but with all the minerals, intellect and other resources that Africa flourishes with, is it all not enough to back us up so that we also have a competitive currency.

Someone somewhere is so greedy thinking about enlarging their wealth at the expense of the continent’s well being. If one man gets rich, he wants the whole town and even his family to know that he is the man, so much such that when he dies, his wealth dies with him because he never taught anyone how to manage and maintain it. Where are we supposed to go with this kind of mentality? We could have the United States of Africa, one common language of our own, travel all over Africa with no visa restrictions and a valuable currency that is recognized across all borders. Is it so hard to figure out that after us is a generation that also wants to live a beautiful life and if we keep at it then we will have nothing to show for the so called independence from slavery? Otherwise we will leave for them a legacy with which they will also slay in slavery. Lets not sit on the problems we have and address them, not for us but for generations to come. It’s not an easy road but the least we can do is try to go on. Slaying in slavery, how bitter and sweet but such is the nature of our lives.

Racism and Realism

So today i stumbled upon a racism issue in the social media streets and the sad part is people of the same race are fighting over this issue. While others think that anything a white man says against a black man is being racist others think that black people (Africans in particular) contribute in fueling up racism for example not being environmentally friendly, inability to capitalise on resources, corruption, culture that shuns development amongst other things.

First blog and am taking on a heated up issue. Well for starters not only a white man is racist, we all can be racist and for all we know not every white man is a racist. So before we go painting everything either black or white, lets acknowledge those fifty shades of grey. Racism is one issue that has always been there and seems immortal through the passage of time. In others it comes as part of their culture so it is inculcated at an early stage, in others its a matter of peer pressure while in many its how history has been fabricated into the fibre of their minds in a way that they see things the way they are designed to.

The issue of superiority and inferiority goes way back and many of us have allowed our past to take control. While the past reminds us, it does not define us. What we do today is what defines us and what generations to come will do in the future defines them. Slavery was a thing and every black man out there is frustrated by it, all they seek is revenge and carry bitterness to also become the racists we talk of today. Yes you need to know where you came from but anything you do in bitterness, rage and frustration does not lead you to any good. The one you are mad at today may not even have the same mindset as their forefathers. Don’t let anger blind you from seeing the bigger picture. Don’t judge a son by the sins of his father. 

While we can remove history, culture, peer pressure, location, religion, social class and many others as drivers to racism, let us see if we can try to focus solely on the human being. Is it possible that one can be born racist?, I doubt that very much yet the more we grow and mature the more we start having these racial issues. Could the problem lie in our educational system, the more we learn, the more it influences our actions. Because truth be told racism is never an inborn thing, it’s triggered in humans throughout the process of their upbringing. Its something we cannot stop because someone somewhere wants that legacy to go on and the honors is therefore upon each and every one of us to make sure that we do not pass this form of hatred as legacy to those who will come after us.

It is now easier to be racist because along our own racial lines there is hatred, what happened to the spirit of ubuntu, of togetherness, of oneness, what happened to the spirit of love? Whether black, asian or white, we are humans before we are anything and we are each other’s keeper. Who has had an encounter with every human of just but one race and can safely conclude that they are all rotten potatoes in one sack? Clearly none and being racist only parades your level of foolishness for no wise person can turn down greatness just because they hate the race its emanating from.

They say an eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind. Let us not lose what really matters while chasing the shadows of the matter. Racism is real and is almost always mistaken with realism because not every fact and not every issue is racial. Sometimes you don’t get that post not because you are not asian but sometimes you just don’t qualify for it. If someone is being real with you its not always that they are being racist. Note thats i say its not always because sometimes it is and we need to learn to decipher realism from racism. Once you get into a situation with a racist mindset then everything you will be told will always go down to racism even when it’s not. Allow your emotional intelligence to let you know which is which and how to react to these issues.

One saying goes, ‘United we stand, divided we fall’. It’s a bitter sweet life and every sip from that cup entails growth in other aspects of life.