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Why nothing black ever seems adequate.

I'm scrolling through social media & I see a picture of black Usonians in the government of the USA & the image is clearly divisive because some black people in the comments are writing racial slurs & calling them "white puppets". This is not an uncommon story for us here in South Africa (& continental Africa) either, where we have black leaders that are put in place by foreign or anti-black powers. 

Sure, there's been a black President of the USA, a black woman in the British Royal Family, a black person in the Italian parliament & even a black Russian dignitary... so why does our place in the world still feel inadequate? There's been a black person in space, a black person on Mount Everest, a black bobsled team in the Olympics but we still feel like we lack something. When will it ever be enough

I think this goes back to having a cultural unsettling during colonization in Africa rather than being disenfranchised by the world. Dealing with disenfranchisement is simple because you build your own way of life, being sabotaged (a cultural unsettling) is harder to deal with because your humanity is messed with. As black people - we never got the chance to make our own lands, cultural systems & develop our languages. Until our heritage gets full expression in our world, it will never BE enough. It's not about being tribalist, it is about identity & a sense of belonging - NOT making it in a world your forefathers would never recognise. 

It will take resurrecting our dying languages, ancient cultures & systems in sovereign lands for us to be complete people. We could then think of ways to get wealth. Wealth in a system that rejects your heritage is almost hollow, it needs to be in a land that understands & accepts who & what you are for your monetary wealth to fully mean something. We find well-off individuals & millionaires from USA coming to Africa to "find themselves" because the history of the USA was one that brutally rejected black people & their way of doing things. Brazilian black people & Caribbean black people do not have this urge to have an African/black Exodus like black Usonians because their identity was more or less accepted by their lands despite the racism they experienced, they eventually became part of the fabric of their new lands as opposed to just free slaves like their black Usonian cousins. 


Emperor Jean-Jacques Dessalines of Haiti

In Africa, we seldom feel as outsiders in our lands but our self-determination & sovereignty is incomplete if we still use foreign, colonial (i. e. not indigenous) languages & legal systems. Our national objectives shouldn't be about being accepted by the world but about being accepted by ourselves.


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