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

OverRated

Freedom

Seemingly just another word used to get a particular reaction out of people. A rise perhaps, over the policies used to govern what we are to discuss on public platforms or how we should think about our so called human rights. Freedom has become a word, like revolution, that we use to play at being conscious.

Ickies and Isms

There’s something disappointing about the ends we means to get to through the many ickies and isms we’ve made up so far. Feminism, patriarchy, paganism, tribalism, monarchies, feudalism, communism, capitalism… and it keeps going. It just seems lazy to live without paying attention to what is happening.

Money and Jobs

This is the middleman to almost all transactions we do on a daily basis. These coins and promissory notes have a value that is regulated by groups of people, to regulate markets and economies. A tiger today may not be worth a half tiger next month. And so our labour is rewarded with conditional promises. Even our worth is expressed in values of money.

Ignorance

It is rumoured to be bliss but, I don’t buy that.

Peer Pressure

We ought to be taking more responsibility instead of making excuses about the habits, behaviour and norms we endorse with the peers we choose to influence us.


Namaste