It was a crime of passion..

Okay so, I’m going to write this really quick, and then I’m going to go bleach my eyebrows. I’ve not posted on here in a few weeks— here’s a few weeks’ worth of seriousness that’s been keeping me up.

1. When we talk of events from the past like slavery, colonialism, the holocaust; events that are characterised by violence to the point of dehumanisation, the attitude is always ‘of course it’s a terrible thing that happened. Of course, if that happened right now, I’d know not to trade human beings, or I’d know not to accept a mirror from the white man in exchange for my peoples’ freedom.’ When people talk of these events, it’s often left unsaid that they’d be on the right side of history.

        We know, especially now, that this is not true.

2. Too many people gain from you not liking yourself. Like real hard cash. With the current state of affairs, that’s too much money to put in someone else’s pocket.

3. We know about Vasco da Gama— we know about him arriving at the Cape of Good Hope, depressed and damn near dead. We know about his courage, and perseverance—a man that was instrumental in setting up the slave trade and colonial rule in Africa. We don’t know about the African that could’ve invited him to dinner, whose son he’d later have shipped off to the Americas, but not before the African showed plenty courage and perseverance trying to get him back. Keyword: could— we don’t know! There’s too much history we ‘know’ of ourselves that has been told to us by everyone but ourselves. All this to say: African literature is where it’s at— it adds perspective.

4. I once watched a video, and now I’m going to jazz you what it said. I neither agree nor disagree with it; I’m just going to jazz you: You know how we talk about generational trauma that’s passed down through groups of people that have experienced violence, is it too crazy to think that there’s something else— idk what— that’s passed down the generations of the groups of people perpetrating said violence?

5. There’s nothing new under the sun. How damning! How comforting!

6. I’ve always been a champion for black love. I watched ‘Something New’, the Sanaa Lathan movie, many years ago— a movie that tells the story of her falling in love with a white man. There’s a scene where she’s telling him about a micro agression she experienced, and he tells her to relax; that they can talk about it later; that it’s always something with her.

I always thought that there was already too much room not to be fully understood by your male partner, just for the simple fact of them being male— let alone white.

        However, Idk if it’s because I’m of childbearing age now(ha!), but I’ve found myself actually listening to men talk. And I must say, it’s disappointing that black men— African men— understand racism, they understand it for the crippling system that it is, but sexism.. There’s something about watching African men trying to dismantle one system of oppression while actively upholding another that has got me rethinking this whole black love thing.

They understand telling a white man not to say nigga, but they can’t understand a woman asking them not to call her a bitch. Disappointing.

7. I’ve been struggling to write for a minute, but a friend of mine told me yesterday that she reads all my blog posts. So this for herrr. xx

Phew! I hope the disclaimer at the top was warning enough.

Have a great week!