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
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