Letters To The Young VII

IT’S HOW YOU TALK ABOUT YOURSELF AS AN AFRIKAN

The Afrikan rhetoric is a sad one. It’s not some kind of separate entity that defines itself. It is the
sum of our perceptions. Afrikan in its varied forms.

It works pretty much the same as you’d expect an idea of its size and nature. With varied veil it
takes on a different form for the observer.

Like white privilege, native entitlement, civil patriotism; these are cultural ideologies that are
shaped by those within that circle. Those that contribute in influence and dimension of what is
said, how it’s said and who can say it. It’s an exclusive club of passing the buck.
No one person can be responsible for an idea, but each can say and do whatever in the pursuit
and expression of it.

Take the idea of Afrikan. With differing perceptions it may appear threatening, weak, rebellious,
righteous or criminal. But this is not that kind of conversation.

We’re not hashing out our issues of what is thought about Afrikan by those wilfully outside that circle. This is about what we think, the way we talk and who leads the conversation.

WHAT WE THINK ABOUT IT

We are all nurtured into a state of mind. A way of thinking, by the information we consume, the
people we interact with and our experiences (and perception of them).

So, what is it you think about yourself as Afrikan? What informs that? What is the truest history
you know, the best told lie?

It is not nearly enough to think ourselves rich in past, for that is only relevant in the context of
time. To believe ourselves destined is just as flawed. What we think over time is irrelevant. It is
what we think now. If there exists no narrative of Afrikan today, surely none will know the meaning
tomorrow.

And so we think a great many things about ourselves. We think gods, kings, warriors, queens,
gold, wealth, inventors, philosophers, engineers, priests, slaves, barbarians, mothers, suffering,
liberty, violence, peace and it goes on. We think these things in a tunnel of time. At point A, we
start out as gods. At B, we have our queens and kings scribed on torched parchment. And at E,
the slavers and slaves have their turn. And our perception of Afrikan becomes a narrative of
moving from hero to zero. A perpetual regression and progression of roles.

Remember; time is irrelevant to an idea. A god does not a slave become even over millennia. The
god only thinks him/herself a slave in his/her own mind.

HOW WE TALK ABOUT IT

Whether huddled in revolutionary caucus, bent back in service of privileged ego or just meddling
with one’s own inner-standings. There is a way we talk about Afrikan. A series of words, strung
neatly with FDA approved thread, intermittent knots of socially acceptable stereotyping and of
course, peppered with delusions and misgivings.

We talk, most times, in response (read:defence) of Afrikan. We are mostly reactionary to foreign
perceptions and so end up chasing our own tail in the journey to becoming one with the idea of
who we are.

Consider the world wide rage of police brutality that targets Afrikans, the legal systems that
criminalise the idea of Afrikan power and statutes erected to maintain a stronghold over this
people. It’s overwhelming, oppressive, wrong. These are all reactionary positions we take. How is
it we are overwhelmed? Why do we allow the oppression? So, what if it’s wrong, are you doing
anything about it?

And this way of talking is not an anomaly. It stems from the seed of thought we’ve carefully
watered and nurtured. The police brutality is enforced, maintained, supported and endorsed by us.
If it bothers us that much we’d surely say something. Even a lion bites back at an incessant flea.
The law that stares and blankly declares we are criminal, naturally, is a human construct we’re
perpetuating. A trojan horse we drag home to complain and bicker over in educated whispers that
disappear like wisps of smoke.

Our words re-enforce our actions. Those we surround ourselves with feed the rhetoric. They, and
you, construct these accepted reactions into notions of normal behaviour when a situation calls.
A lion is never an antelope.

WHO LEADS THE CONVERSATION

The short answer is us. Afrikans.

It’s always been us. A slaver could drag a goddess across leagues of water and display her for all
to see. That same slaver then proceeds to, in no informed sense, explain this vision to the fellows
at the racket club. The one leading the conversation is by no means the slaver; that is merely one
observer looking through the veil of cultured perceptions.

The goddess, in her naked or scantily dressed form is the conversation. And so leads it. What is
Afrikan is known only to the Afrikan. Nothing she can say or do will definitively alter their
perception. And neither their perceptions will stain the reality of who she is.

And thus we, Afrikans in our spaces and misgivings should remember we lead the conversation. At
no point does an idea like this become the property of the observer.

Talk about yourself as an Afrikan. Not a god-slave to time, a lion victim to the acts of a flea nor as
a result of observations.


Find out what it means to be Afrikan.

Namaste

This Is Africa

This is the place.

Of martyrs and murderers.

Of beginnings and endings.

Where the gene pool of seedlings

Stays sleeping.

Where the ransom of rains

Stays weeping.

This is the place.

This is the home.

Of creator and creation.

The heart of the planet

It hangs on.

The root of the atom

It stems from.

Darkness is sisters with day here.

War is brother to love.

The mountains stand defiantly

Holding up the grass.

Because this is the home

Of torture and bliss.

The milk and honey

Flows redirected.

Edging further and nearer

In this place.

This is the land.

Where life welcomes death.

And death becomes life.

Namaste

Unreal

There's a woman I know. I met her way back when she was still a girl. Her name is Sindie Noqayi. She is unreal. A force of nature like I've never known. This is for her.

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You are the unwritten verse

the words that cling, with claws

to the walls of my throat.

You are the unmade promise

the testament of time, the reflection

I see in you is mine.

You are the unspoken,

the unbroken and unmatched.

You are love.

The sound of joy and cry of laughter.

You are the unhidden discovered,

and the lost lamb, recovered.

You are the unknown, now known.

You are the unseen, now seen.

You are the unreal, made real.

Namaste

I Want To Read You

I want to read you

Like a novel.

Turn over your every page,

Delicately peel back your story.

Navigate each twist,

And chart all your plots.

I want to read you

Like a suicide note.

Cut every line away

And shed the shame with you.

To find between the broken lines

The life you thought you’d lost.

I want to read you

Like a love letter.

The frantic confessions

Of a fool that knows no better.

I want to be the smile that guides

The hand to speak.

To be the poem at the end

And a scribble on the margins.

I want to read you

Like a scripture.

With the faith to follow

Your every verse.

To believe as you believe

In the blessing behind each curse.

I want to read you

Like a song.

Sing you off-key word for word.

Memorise your chorus

And have you playing on and on.

I want to read you

Like a sonnet.

Rehearse you

When I’m alone.

And recite you

Once you’re gone.

I want to read you

Like a notice of death.

To trace your life

In a single line.

To find you alive in the poetry that need not rhyme.

I want to read you one more time

So I’ll never have to say goodbye.

Namaste

When I Was Black

When I was black
the world was flat.
I was wrong and
white was right,
there were no lights,
so I lived my life in perpetual night.

When I was black
you broke my neck.
You called me names
and stole from me.
Self-elected, you governed
and relegated me
to worthless
without mercy.

When I was black
I was your slave.
At the mercy of your moods
and the subject of your rage.
You were my jailer,
you shot me in the back
when I was black.

Now that I’m Afrikan,
I find my might
in the truths white tried to hide.
In the histories turned into fables
and in the past that’s covered in lies.

Now that I’m Afrikan
I’m applauded.
Lorded as something better than black.
Played out and pawned.
Shifted and sought.
A headhunted slave.
You still don’t know my name.

I am Afrikan.
I am the exploded star and setting sun,
a form of burning energy and the undying light.
Mine is the blood of a billion sons,
thick rivers of interwoven ones.
Make no mistake;
the melanin in my skin
is not my claim to Menelik’s kin.

This broad nose
is no mark of clan
to verify my state of being.

I am Afrikan
for the stories I tell.
For my blunt delivery
of why the klansmen continues the killing,
for knowing the negro blackface kaffir and his ill
- that stockholm syndrome.

I am Afrikan
for reasons radio won’t play,
tv won’t air and papers won’t print.
I am nobody’s slave,
nobody’s kaffir
and nobody’s nigger.
The lashes on my back
are scars in my past.
My innocence,
like your broken hymen,
can never be re-gotten.

When I was black
the world was flat.
Now I’m Afrikan
and I’m taking it back.

Namaste

Open Letter to Afrikan Brothers

Brothers, we must talk, so let’s be straight about things.

Grow Up. Don’t just grow balls and a beard. Grow in all the ways you can; spiritually, intellectually, inwardly and emotionally. Our homes, communities, our sisters and children are in need of men, brothers and fathers; not boys still chasing after boyish things.

Learn to lead. Not with brute force, manipulation or abuse. Learn to lead with love, Brother.

Celebrate the Afrikan Woman. Be it a mother, sister, daughter, lover or a friend. Those who continue to walk all over our homes and Sisters will never learn to respect either. We must be the ones to show them how.

Be your Brother’s keeper. Hold one another accountable. Most evils perpetrated by our Brothers could be at an end if only we stop accepting the unacceptable. Brother, stop looking the other way.

Brothers, please understand that we are the very spine of this continent. We will not kneel or grovel. We cannot break, even with a jackboot to our backs, a noose around our necks, a bullet to the head or even 500 years of actions done to meet this one end. It falls to us, Brothers, to father this broken place into a better world.

Peace and Love,
from an Afrikan Brother.

Open Letter to Afrikan Sisters

The very world we occupy is built and harvested on the backs of Afrikan Sisters. Make no mistake, Sister, to think yourself so lowly to be a double-minority.

When we speak of this as the Motherland, you are implicated as the mother who has not only birthed mankind but raised it over centuries. So pay no mind Sister to those who walk on your back to get one up on you; for sometimes the learner believes themselves to be the teacher. But of course, in the face of this upside-down double-minority world we live in I, as Brother to all Sisters, ask that we talk a few things over.

Beauty defines the very nature of feminine, thus Woman is about beauty. Nothing else. This is the gospel you’ve been made to believe, which is an obvious lie. Feminine defines the nature of beauty. Woman is the living breathing word. She is beauty, not in looks or clothes or even money. Woman is beauty in doing, in living and being. She defines it, not the other way around. How sad it is to see you Sisters so beautiful; hidden under thick applications of self-hatred. Busy chasing beauty when you already have it.

And that is what Afrikan Men need to raze this broken system to the ground and raise this ruined continent to its full glory; Beautiful Afrikan Women. Equals in this never-ending fight to have a home. But life is hard for a Sister out there, everyone knows it. Each day tests your strength, but surviving is not enough. Stating facts and making (legitimate) excuses won’t change anything for the better. No one else is going to Mother all the nations because, no one else can. If you are the fortunate daughter of Afrika, you are in turn mother to her children. If you do not take ownership of your part in things, there is no one who can. Instead decisions will be made about you, conversations spoken without you and your children massacred in spite of you.

But then love in all its nakedness has perhaps been used to do the most damage to you. From boys and men who only know how to love with their body to twisted, incomplete reflections of self. Your pursuit for love has led you to an incredible state of self-hate. Many times you’ve not found peace within and sought it outside. Truly Sister the universe is remade in you. There is no greater truth than that you’ll find within and there is no greater lover either.

With love,
from an Afrikan Man.

Letters To The Young #2

We are young. Often we are told what we should do with our youth. How we ought to act, react, think and believe, and most times by people who have lost themselves inside the very same congested systems they direct us into. We are told to be quiet when elders speak, so to gain insight into the wisdom that is a result of their long experiences on this big blue garden. Maybe it is best to look at the value of these experiences before we make haste over a cliff.

Look around you. What do you see, what don’t you see. What do you think? How do you think? How do you make your way through the forest of confusion into the clearing of enlightenment? How and when do you make judgments? Why do you choose one path over the other? What inspires or directs these choices? Who is teaching you to think?

Our paths cannot be chosen by others. Not the generation that precedes us or our children to follow.

We can no longer hide behind the ignorance and excuses of our fore bearers. We cannot get away with murder because… well, others have gotten away with it too. No longer can we justify inherited brutalities under what we choose as natural, divine or man’s law. If we are to claim life, then we must claim it in its entirety. We must take full responsibility of our time in this place.

There is no sense in towing a line that keeps us towing. Things develop, and so must we. If all we ever do is what’s always been done, then all we’ll ever be is what’s always been around.

Namaste

Letters To The Young #1

We are young. What we do with the sparks of life given to us is the question to which we must all answer. Not even death can cheat us out of the mark we leave to the living when we die. Not chain of man nor affliction of nature can exempt us from the responsibility of life. To live.

With each distraction we have adopted stranger purposes. With every concession we make we trade more of our lives out for another minute on the treadmill. Strange creatures that we are.

Men owe it to boys to show them how to live. Women owe it to girls to teach them how to lead. Because you see this struggle isn’t over by a long way. We have not put our hands on the robes of true freedom just yet. There is still a while to go, more walls to be torn down and bridges built before we can look at each other as more than equals but, brothers and sisters.

There is that light inside each of us. A voice so small science can’t find and so great it won’t be silenced. It is that dream so old, it is your first. Mine is an energy that tells me, urges and pushes me to question. And so I ask you to show your light. Shine it out so you can see how great you are.

We, the young are charged by the sinews in our muscles and the synapses in our minds to be great, right here and now. At a time when it’s still okay to plunder the poor and pad the rich we must not be afraid to speak out. At an age where we calmly class and weigh one another we must not be afraid to rage. In a world where we do nothing but wait we must not be afraid to stand up. And in this place where death is certain by act of man or nature we must not be afraid to live.

Namaste

Confessions of an Ad Mfundi 1

Having attended my very first baptism, I am moved to confess.

People & Brands

As people we tend to get attached early on in our lives to the warm and seldom fuzzy feeling of belonging. We belong with our parents and family. This cute sense of belonging grows up to be a desire to belong outside of family structures. We then belong with our friends, most of whom our guardians warn against. It’s not long after that we feel we need to belong to bigger and larger ideals and groups. We find belonging in how we praise and understand creation, belonging in how we live and measure our lives and belonging in how we define life itself. We join groups, clubs, associations and fellowships to express our values and beliefs. The collar we wear on our necks, the badges on our chests and the daggers up our sleeves shows others where we stand on certain subjects without uttering a single word.

Person branding does two things. It takes these values we associate with groups we belong to and makes it a benefit or a feature of a product or service. Next it creates shared interest communities around this branded experience.

Simply the ‘person brand’ takes human experience – classifies it, groups, arranges and organises it -  associates it with a something to be sold, and then sells it.

As a result of this consumer society we love so much we live the products we own, we breathe money and compare services as a conversation starter. All we know to do anymore is buy. Want something new. Buy it. Want something to wear. Order it. Want something delivered. Pay for it. Want something, anything? Money talks. And what a filthy mouth it has.

Namaste