What's on Mthoko's mind?

Personally, I don't mind the "exodus" of black Americans to Africa. I feel all people have the right to go where they want to be most. Growing up, I'd think black Americans were a lot better than us here in South Africa & in time grew disillusioned & realised they were just as miseducated & persecuted as us black people in South Africa.  In truth, only a handful of people from South Africa's indigenous people were taken in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The few that were taken were maybe taken to the Netherlands, maybe Suriname & maybe England. I doubt that there were any slaves from southern Africa taken to the New World excepting a few Tsonga / Chopi taken to Brazil, Uruguay & greater South America & maybe the Caribbean. The overwhelming majority of slaves from the Americas descend from people on the west African coast (i. e. Kingdom of Congo, Cameroon, Angola, Nigeria, Ghana, Benin etc.). Those that went to South America were mostly from...

As a black person from South Africa, I have little that associates me with Elon Musk. He left the country before I was born & he was not bullied by black people from South Africa. Because apparently, his "bullying" in South Africa is his villian origin story ... it's mentioned ever so frequently in these mini-documentaries I see of him & he claims he had a "bad childhood". I don't care about bullying much because I was bullied myself & just bullied back. I think it's just a strange media storm around him at present & when the dust settles & the world sees who & what he really is, we can make judgements. But there's just something funny about everything around him now but time will expose all, I suppose.  I think the white population of South Africa will care more about Elon Musk & appreciate him more as something they aspire to be like. We have our own Robert Gumede's here in South Africa as ro...

Many countries have tried & failed to take the title of World's Best Basketball Nation from the USA, not even Canada who made the game are capable of matching the USA. Yugoslavia were probably the second best basketball nation in the world after the USA before disintegration. Currently, Spain are FIBA Basketball World Cup champions but the USA are still Olympic champions. I think Spain's success is down to their belief that their nation can , more importantly, Spanish blood can more than actual ability or talent because pound-for-pound USA likely has more talent than Spain & USA still leads the FIBA rankings . Taller & more athletic countries tend to do well in basketball hence Nigeria & Brazil are among the best in the world but with organised team sports, it takes more than athleticism & physique to be victorious. So what can a country do to succeed following the USA blueprint?  1) TALENT IDENTIFICATION STRUCTURES : I've never been to the USA but I...

Quiet often, I feel like the negativity spotlight is unfairly on Africa. It sometimes feels like we did something wrong by just being African. We always complain about colonisation as if it's something that couldn't be solved in a decade. But, for a moment, let's take the spotlight off of Mother Africa & see how other indigenous peoples around the world faired after being colonised.  ASIA : Asia faired the best after being colonised by European entities, they came out of colonization so well that many far-east Asian countries managed to reach European-level development. Europe & Asia have always shared historic ties so their development should come as no surprise but south Asia has faired the worst with some regions still experiencing ethnic wars, ethnic persecutions & poverty.  AUSTRALASIA :  Australia, New Zealand, Polynesia, Melanasia, Papua New Guinea were all home to melanated people because they lived closer to the equator. The islands faired...

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 ...

Alright, I seem overly concerned with the well-being of people I don't know in America for unknown reasons today. In particular, their lack of knowledge of their origins. It makes no sense, I know. But I went out of my way to search some distinctly African traits in black Americans (African Americans) to measure how deep the disconnect really is. Sure, these people were deliberately sold into slavery by Africans & African chiefs but I'm sentimental & still feel they should be connected to Africa somehow (if they so wish).  AFRICAN vs NOT AFRICAN.   I've seen a lot of Americans claim that black American music is from Africa & have to say samba from Brazil is the only African-type music in the Americas that I identify as African. Blues, rhythm & blues, hip hop & jazz are just not that distinctly African, so even if they are made by people of African descent, they've become too alienated from the African identity to be classified as African. Some claim...