BlackMan Time

Archive for the ‘Culture’ Category

Someone asked me the other day if I was “black conscious”. My response to this question would normally be “yes”. On this occasion, however, I found myself pausing before giving my response…

On another day my answer would have been “yes, I am” to this question. However, this time, I stopped and thought deeper. I concluded that consciousness was more concerned with what is going on in the mind and, as such, was unconnected to one’s colour.

Now, since the mind did not itself carry a colour, except for what you pour into it culturally, naturally and logistically through your life experiences, my eventual answer made sense. “I’m not black conscious,” I answered. “I’m just…conscious.”

The response surprised even me. I knew that the purpose of the question was to find out whether I was aware of the particular set of issues facing people of African descent in society, which I was. Nevertheless, rather than be led by someone else’s definition of black consciousness, I opted to play it cool.

My reason, I guess, was that being generally conscious spans a wider space than just being “black conscious”. In any case, as an African descended man living in an inherently racist environment means I am already aware of the issues as a black person.

It was academic, really…

I’ve been asked this question more times than I care to admit but usually by white people uncomfortable with the idea of a custom specifically celebrating black culture.

From their perspective a Black Anything event seeminly excludes them for the simple reason they are not black. They contrast this with the fact that they do not have a White History Month, for example.

It is perhaps irrelevant to them that the reason we have Black History Month is to try and redress the imbalance that exist in a society where people of African descent are in the minority and where institutional racism and discrimination prevent them from getting equality of services and opportunities.

Colour Blind

One white former male work colleague tells me: “I see you and other guys of other races as my friends, not my ‘black’ friends, but kind of colourless.” He worries that events specifically tailored to black people ” is another divide against uniting all people of every race and coming to a point where we get away from seeing people still as a product of their colour.”

It is clear the colour focus is a worry to white people. Why should this be so? Some of the vilest racial epithets (those beginning with ‘n’ and rhyming with bigger, for instance) are not terms black people invented for themselves. Or maybe the colour focus forces them to reflect on why black people exist in such large numbers in the west: the result of illegal and inhumane white trafficking in African slaves some 400 years ago.

Others see hope for humanity in working towards a united world view, with just one people, human with no distiction of country, class, monetry value etc. In fact the kind of world John Lennon envision in his classic track “Imagine”.

Utopia?

Can such utopia be realised while we still have a reality where presidents unleash illegal wars to avenge the failures of their fathers? Or wars to steal the assets of another nation just because they can get support from other nations with similar interests?

Of one thing we are very certain: skin colour is important as a cultural characteristic yet, to quote a popular song, “until the colour of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes there will be war (division).” Learning to love and respect someone regardless of their customs, culture or colour should perhaps be the ultimate goal for us all.

Is that a world you would like to help develop?

If you’re based in the UK and you haven’t yet noticed this month is designated Black History Month. It is a time for observation of all things Black, particularly celebrating the inglorious history, progress and development of black culture, whatever that really means.

There are some who would much rather abolish the commemoration of this event altogether. They argue using the term ‘Black’ or referring to people by their skin colour is either defamatory or ghettoise people of African descent.

Some use alternative adjectives to describe British-based black people. These include African, Afrikan, Black British, African British, Black Briton, Afro Saxon, Afro Caribbean, Black Caribbean and so forth.

I have heard of attempts to change the name of the celebration from Black History Month to Cultural Heritage Month to accommodate Asian, Chinese, Jewish and other cultures. This overlooks the fact that these other cultures already have their own designated celebrations. From this I suspect they simply want to totally eradicate the name.

I even hear some Asians (from India, Pakistan, etc.) have started calling themselves ‘black’ in order to get access to local authority and community grants to launch Black History projects. But are Asian people black? Were they (or their ancestors) the ones stolen from the African mainland and brought to the Caribbean? The answer is, of course, no.

There is always someone not comfortable with people of African descent celebrating what is called Black History Month so they seek to benefit from it or to diminish and/or descredit its importance if they cannot profiteer from it.

Left up to them they would erase any memory of the Black Holocaust that is the African transhipment slavery; that we should somehow ‘move along’ and forget about Western involvement in the trading and trafficking of human cargo that happened 400 years ago. At worst they want to push the idea that Black people are now so assimilated into British society that any links or ties to Africa is artificial, a fantasy or misguided.

The reality is whether we have a designated Black History Month celebration or not Black people in the UK are a testament that our legacy is filled with an unpleasant chapter of history that no amount of white washing can eradicate.

Just how much more white washing can an African take before he is actually assimilated?

Black History Month.

Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month, Black History Month.

Black History Month (31 times).

I wished they would just stop pretending they really give a damn about the history of people from African descent while the descendants of old pirates are still robbing us and have exchanged the merchant ships with commercial endorsements that white wash our legacy with a 31 day celebration.

Me, bitter? Are you kidding?! I am proud to be black but my blackness cannot be contained within the confines of one month. In fact it is taking me a lifetime to understand this.

How about you?

Why does a black story have to be told through white eyes in order to get the green light in Hollywood? Or why is it more acceptable for an orange to tell the story of an egg?

I ask because I’ve just seen “District 9″ a well put together film which on the surface work as a sci fi but on a deeper level is really a social reality opus looking at the former apartheid regime in South Africa. That is a really net trick!

To pull this off director Neill Blomkamp had to enlist the help of Peter Jackson, of “Lord of the Rings” fame and it got support to become the number one film in America a few weeks ago.

Considering the not so very well hidden latent storyline I wondered if such a film would’ve even been considered if a black filmmaker had approached financers with the idea. You see there is a prevailing view that black films don’t make money at the box office.

Successful films from directors like Tyler Perry, Spike Lee and others dispel this rumour yet Hollywood continues to cling to it for dear life. Why? It seems black filmmakers need to make films about oranges if they want to talk about eggs.

Sad, but is it true?

If something good happens to you once you can call it luck. At best you can call it chance; at worse probability. Some people might call it fate! If good things happen to you all the time you cannot call it luck. It has to be given another name. Blessing is a good way to call it…

If luck is something that happens by chance at random, subject to the whims of circumstances and environment, a blessing happens only because God has sanctified it.

You could theoretically improve your “luck” by adjusting the probability of things happening, but only God alone can increase (or decrease) your blessings.

If your blessings keep on multiplying or happening at more frequent intervals then you could assume you are indeed well blessed and that God is pleased with you in some way.

Crazy Non-Believer

Of course if you are a non-believer in God all this might sound crazy but the power of prayer can never be underestimated. Neither can the power of karma be ignored because what goes around, does comes around. Indeed if you plant good seed you will reap good crop.

Essentially, if you only ever think about yourself and you’ve never done anything for anybody without expecting a reward, how can you expect to be blessed for your works?

At the same time you can’t do good works expecting a blessing and be blessed. Your good deed has to be done from the heart and be given genuinely.

I give thanks yesterday, today and tomorrow for all my blessings.

So there I was on the packed Piccadilly Line northbound platform, heading towards Wood Green. Just arriving beside me was a woman with her cute little daughter who could not have been any more than around three or four.

The mother carefully explained to the child where they were and what was happenening. The child listened intently and nodded her head to signal her understanding, her steel blue eyes twinkling in their little sockets.

I look down the tunnel to see if there was any sign of a tube train approaching. Just then a little voice piped up: “Mummy, I wish that train would hurry up!”

It made me smile. For here, right beside me, was the next generation of Londoner, already at the young age displaying the traits of what makes a London city dweller a Londoner.

It always baffles me whenever I meet anyone from the same cultural background who has a problem with the patois that we both speak! A note from a woman who liked yesterday’s piece, prompted me to write this. She said: “Nice note. Shame you had to use patois in it though…”

Excuse me? Surely she cannot be serious?! Apparently she was…

She explained that because I was educated and knew how to write correctly that I shouldn’t use patois in my articles. She suggested patois was “only for uneducated people” and that I had somehow spoiled the piece by including it.

As far as I’m concerned I didn’t spoil it with patois because it is a natural part of how I speak. I generally communicate as appropriate for the situation. But she’s not the first person who has pulled me over the way I talk.

A few months back another woman hesitated to talk with me because I used slang in talking with her! She insisted I spoke “proper English” or else. I actually chose the “or else” option and walked away from her.

I have no problem with people trying to improve themselves but I have to question the validity of such “progress” when it comes at the expense of endorsing your roots, expressing or owning your cultural identity!

As a teenager it always fascinated me to see my out of school friends practising chat up lines with which to inflict on girls they liked. I wasn’t really into the idea myself.

I felt something like that should be spontaneous and not be contrived otherwise it just somehow seemed…unnatural.

You can imagine the kind of ridicule I got for even thinking that, let alone saying it to a group of aspiring gallists!¹ But then I was the kind of youth who never seem to follow the crowd, especially if I couldn’t see the logic of their intention.

The problem with chat up lines is that they steer conversations in a contrived, predictable and corny way. Unless you’ve got the charisma to match the words coming out of your mouth it can really irritate the person you’re trying to impress.

Gifted Words

Being gifted with words, of course, helped me to steer clear of this trap. But the way I overcome not having to memorise chat up lines was to educate myself on current affairs! I used to make it my business to get to know all the latest news, both local, national and international. I had an angle on every major issue in each territory so that I could participate in practically any discussion.

I guess in retrospect it probably did make me seem more interesting because there’s nothing a woman likes more than a man they can have a decent conversation with. Now, add a man who actually knew things and you almost had a winning combination, negating the need for any chat up lines!

Years later after we’d all grown up and much into our late 20s those same boys used to come to me for advice on how to chirps women! By then chat-up lines seemed corny and superficial to them.

It was at this point that I realised my chilhood friends had finally grown up.

1. Jamaican term for womanisers [↩]

The other day I was out walking, ostensibly to get some fresh air as well as to exercise my legs. For some reason I started to think about how healthy this exercise actually was, as successive cars passed me billowing out plumes of smoke and other debris from their exhaust.

I started with petrol fumes from vehicles being a major element that pollute our environment and make the idea of “fresh air” in an urban environment a myth.

Just then a man passed me smoking a cigarette and the smoke somehow wafted over into my direction. This so-called second hand smoke is also a pollutant that demolishes the fresh air myth.

Up in the sky above me I saw the contrails¹ of an aircraft snaking out into the distance for miles. But, the way how cloud formation was I knew this wasn’t a contrail at all but chemtrails. Now the difference between the two is subtle.

Fuming Vapor

The contrail is the natural fumes from airplane exhaust which makes cloud patterns in the sky as it vaporises. The chemtrail²l is a man-made equivalent caused by deliberately spraying the sky with a concoction of chemicals for differing reasons.

Conspiracy theorists think chemtrail chemicals are orchestrated and sprayed by drug company cartels to make people sick at various times of the year to increase sales of certain cough medicines, flu allergies, etc.

Whatever the reasons it is noticeable that chemtrails have a different characteristic to contrails although to the untrained eye they look the same.

I’m sure there are many more examples of things we use or do that make our environment unsafe or unworthy of being called “fresh” whenever we venture out in it.

1. Short for “condensation trails” or the visible vapour trails of condensed water vapour made by the exhaust of aircraft engines. [↩]
2. condensation trails created by toxic chemicals or biological agents at high altitude [↩]