BlackMan Time

Archive for August, 2007

It never bothered me as such but I used to wonder why heavily veiled Muslim women would avoid getting into the lifts with me.

At first I jokingly questioned whether the scent I was giving off in such close quarters was the problem! Then the joke petered off when an increasing number of Muslim women would rather wait for the next lift than get into one where it would be just them and I.

Again, I jokingly asked whether I looked threatening or otherwise came across as some shady character. Then, a period went by when I didn’t meet any Muslim women who wanted to use the lifts the same time as me. Until yesterday…

There was a group of them yesterday and among them was one non-Muslim Jamaican. I overheard her say to one woman: “So, in you’re culture you’re not allowed to get into a lift alone with someone who isn’t your husband?” The Muslim woman answered yes.

Seems like I found the reason why Muslim women avoided me like the plague!

I keep underestimating the strength of my own brilliance! Or, to put it another less braggadocios way: I underestimate my influence on other people.

I’ve just come across this site called blackscholar.net which seems to have copied our original educational intention, down to the very slogan we still use!

I am not surprised by this because they are not the first website, company or organisation that has gained ‘inspiration’ from my conceptual, creative or professional work. But to land on their site and see the Knowledge, Wisdom & Understanding strap line under their local, makes it just too close to our own Knowledge, Wisdom & Overstanding.

Ok, so maybe there’s a slight difference in the strap wording between Understanding and Overstanding but the similarity is too striking to say it’s just pure coincidence.

Still, it’s good to know we’re reaching people and imitation, they say, is the most sincere form of flattery. Somehow, I don’t really feel that flattered to be honest…

Over the weekend I visited the dry cleaners and the assistant who served me was a very tall and attractive blond haired, blue eyed woman. She wore a Sterling silver Nerfetiti chain around her neck and it caught my eye because it’s not often I see white people wearing Black symbols like that.

I commented on the chain briefly by telling the assistant, who appeared approachable to me, by saying: “I like your chain: Nerfetiti, the African queen!”

Suddenly the warm, friendly smile disappeared from her face and the woman’s demeanour became ice. Almost in real time I could almost see the temperature air slow freeze to ice. What did I say wrong?

I can only surmise that the woman didn’t like my description of Nerfetiti. Surely she knew that Nerfetiti was formerly queen of Egypt which is located on the northern tip of Africa, right? Why wear the pendant and then get offended if someone comments on its factuality?

My conclusion is that the woman has got her own cross to bear. And she was wearing it around her neck, as far as I could see.

By the time you read this I’ll probably be in Morocco! This is my first trip to the Motherland, Africa, of course, and although it is northern – not West Africa which is where my original roots are, I am still excited.

At this moment I am filled with all the usual trepidation, excitement and buzz that come prior to any new adventure. Questions abound: What will I find? Will I be able to deal with whatever I find? What should I worry about?

The first casualty was expectations which I decided to abandon. I reasoned that since I have never been to Morocco before all or any expectations I had about would only be other people’s perception and if bought this then I would develop a bias one way or another. Then I jotted down all the images surrounding Morocco that I could think of so that I could then reject them!

These include the film “Casablanca” with Humphrey Bogart, images of Caucasian people being colonial in the region, any idea of the locals being primitive savages, or thoughts of the government led by the royal family being corrupt or inept. The one preconception it was hard to get rid of was the one where I imagine the woman would be beautiful!

Aw, a man has got to have at least one vice, right?!

You’ll no doubt see how my discoveries fare in this Blog. You may not see them immediately, for technical and/or security reasons, but keep reading nonetheless!

Before embarking on a little break to Morocco, I contemplated getting immunised against the recommended stuff. These are Hepatitis A, Polio and Typhoid.

Being immunised entails being injected with manageable doses of Hepatitis A, Polio and Typhoid. The idea is to introduce the body to these conditions and allowing the body to naturally acclimatise or fight (and defeat!) them.

For some reason I didn’t like the idea of this and so I went in search of an alternative remedy.

The most prevalent thing in my mind was what if my body actually react badly to these elements? Chances are that I would not be able to travel.

On the other hand what if I had no immunisation and went away anyway but caught one of the ailments while on holiday? Again, either my holiday would have to be curtailed or I would have to rough it out in Morocco.

I found the alternative remedy in an herbal homeopathy, courtesy of a Chinese healthcare place in North West London. The treatment via pills, work by building up the immune system and strengthening the body to withstand such things.

For me this is a much better way than running into a colony of bees nest and waiting to see if the bees will actually sting you!

Whenever youths as young as 11 starts to get shot in the head by youths the same age, then you just know there’s a much bigger problem somewhere in that society. So, you can imagine, there’s something seriously wrong in northern England (and the UK in general) right now, with the gun killing of Rhys Jones, an 11-year-old Liverpool boy.

The incident which has sparked such comments happened on Wednesday, August 22, 2007 when Rhys was shot dead as he strolled across a pub car park. His killer was another youngster on a BMX bicycle. At the time police believed the killer to be around 11 or 12.

A sad incident like that tells us a lot about society, people and the state of life in general.

For weeks similar stories had been in the headlines but both victims and killer tended to be Black. It got coverage but the outrage felt and expressed was not as great as this latest incident. This could either be because of the younger age factor, or it may actually be a little favouritism, maybe racism even!

Racism would probably have been too strong a word so perhaps prejudice fits the bill better. Either way, the bottom line is that the death of an 11 year old white boy seems to generate greater attention than anything else.

In a perfect world it shouldn’t matter what colour someone is to decide the scale of the moral outrage. But we don’t live in such a world and people do have their preferences.

Sometimes these preferences come out in unexpected ways.

I have to concede I am wrong about sleep! It is not a time-wasting, underrated activity! It actually does refreshes and replenishes the body!

OK, all this should already be common sense or obvious. But sometimes when you’re pressed for time or working to tight deadlines you burn the candle at both ends mistakenly thinking that working all hours God send is what is needed to accomplish certain tasks. Wrong!

Sleep is often one of the elements in the equation that we overlook. Thus we operate on less than normal sleep with the body and brain struggling to cope with the added pressure of having to work without being rested well. It is a fallacy of course and if one continues with this something usually has to give somewhere along the line.

These were my thoughts this morning as I woke after having a full six and a half hour sleep! My body felt like it had been rested and I didn’t feel sluggish at all! Sorry, I’m not an eight hours a night man sleep wise: if I ever sleep that long I only wake up feeling tired and need more sleep to get over the lack of sleep that over sleeping induces!

In the past I have joked: “Why bother with a lot of sleep? When you die you have all the time in the world to catch up with sleep! Or maybe sleep catches up with you!”

I guess having rediscovered the joys (and benefits!) of sleep I will endeavour to get to bed earlier and see how long I can continue this quaint little practice!

Zzzz…

What is actually driving me forward to produce a piece of thought everyday in this BlackMan Time blog is the sceptical attitude I encountered from an upper-class twit work colleague. We had been talking about the company’s website and how it was a shame that the blog was not added to on a daily basis.

In fact the last blog entry was a year ago, at that time. I was appalled and surprised at this.

His disdainful answer was: “Well, if there’s nothing to say why clutter up cyberspace with space filler?” Or, something to that effect. I started to think why wasn’t it possible to write something at least once a day that was both relevant and of acceptable quality? And that was when the notion that I would write about something relevant came about.

The rest, as they say, is history!

The funniest thing of all, however, is the fact that my colleague actually reads BlackMan Time. He thinks it is brilliant! I just haven’t got the heart (or mind) to tell him he was the inspiration for its daily update!

Long before Hurricane Dean had hit Jamaica US President Bush had ensured emergency measures for Texas were well in place, just in case the strong wind rearranged the Texas Red Neck landscape!

That initiative was made on the back of a FEMA announcement by officials gloating how they were ready for Dean in advance, should disaster strike.

The first thing that came into my mind when I heard about these developments was that Bush was so on the ball so quickly only because it was his home state that was at stake. It took him minus three days to be ready for Dean but nearly plus one week before he responded when Hurricane Katrina blew down the predominantly Black New Orleans area.

And then he had to apologise for mishandling the Katrina crisis. But what good is an apology to the people who’ve already been made homeless and dehumanised by the hurricane displacement?

Rapper Kanye West was right, of course: Bush don’t give an eff about (predominantly Black) people living in that part of the American world.

But, there are more hurricanes to come I’m sure so we will watch and see how he deals with these. I am almost sure the action he takes will depend on his personal interests he has invested into what is under threat.

As we have seen the US President is partial to some things; and very impartial to others. Is such an attitude the right one for someone given the responsibility of running a country like America?

All religions, particularly if they are actually relevant to people’s lives, have laws to follow. Closer examination of these laws might reveal uncanny similarity between them all too!

Take for instance Buddhism. Its laws come in the form of precepts and among the top five, in no particular order, are these:

• Don’t Kill Anything
• Don’t Steal
• Don’t Misuse (or abuse) Sex
• Don’t Tell Lies
• Don’t Drink/Take Drugs

The one which sticks out the most is the last one: the one about drink/drugs which basically deals with sobriety. This is probably the one that would give the Average Joe the most problems because it seeks to curtail Joe’s means to lift himself into another realm to escape the brutal reality called life.

In some circumstances depriving Joe access to his beloved drink and drugs is detrimental to society. Not everyone has the will power, desire or ability to live a virtuous life and so abstaining from what kills them (their poison!) is not on the agenda for discussion.

The others are universal ideals also governed by local government laws. Can you imagine what would happen if they didn’t exist? That’s right; we’d have a lawless society, where dogs eat your supper if you are weak.

It’s frightening to think that such times existed until relatively recently. They were described as so-called “Dark Ages” or “Wild Wild West” eras. Some might argue that situations like these exist, even today.

But that is another story…