This morning, I got in a fight with my niece. A pretty nasty fight with a 9 year old. Insane right?
Here’s a little background on what transpired.
I noticed that she wasn’t smiling in any of the selfies we were taking. ‘You need to smile. That’s how you brighten your face.’ I tell her.
She says no. I’ll have to wait till she’ll 10 and gets braces to straighten and align her teeth first. ‘I HATE this Gap!'
She’s referring to the gap between her two mid upper incisors, the Gap that was for decades and centuries worshipped by girls for it portrayed a sign of beauty. Its significance was so prominent that mothers would file their little girl’s teeth from an early age in anticipation that the Gap would come to be before suitors started shopping for brides.
I mentioned this to her and reminded her that her grandma, auntie and cousin have it, love it, and look so beautiful when they smile.
She argued that that’s because it matches with their caramel toned skins. Dark chocolate girls don’t look as good with one.
Damn! Where do I even begin with this one?
You see, this got nothing to do with her. It’s a form of pandemic that has invaded the entire black culture, all around the globe. A pandemic that plants a seed of doubt, criticism and self-hate in what should be celebrated.
Let’s start with names. Paid any attention to these new era names modern babies are going by? Names that are so hard to pronounce or spell. Very sophisticated and high end they say. No more are they even going with the African kienyeji names with all the ushamba they carry as their second names. Gen Alphas are bearing names that may make you think they belong to some Caucasian kid from Chicago or Massachusetts when in reality they're for a baby who’s never left the boundaries of Siakago or Machakos.
No longer are they speaking in or even capable of understanding their native languages.
“My baby doesn’t understand Kikamba. She only communicates in English.” You’ll hear the moms shamelessly brag.
In schools, students are brutally punished if a teacher catches them speaking in their mother tongue or at times Swahili. How effed up is this? Let me make it clear; the English these kids speak is so broken you’ll feel sorry for the kids speaking it, especially since ‘it’s the only language they know.’ Such a pity!
On social media you’ll come across a clique of young ladies in their late teens and twenties obsessing about the white savior. These girls have so much hate for the black man that all they dream of and strive for is finding the love of an elderly white divorced retiree to come whisk them away from Africa and father some mulatto babies with ‘good hair’. As for the men, their obsession with brown skinned girls is insatiable. Thus, for the black girls who can’t find a grandpa to ‘save’ them, they bleach their gorgeous chocolate melanin and instantly, start exhibiting as socialites.
Oh, and the hair! You’ll fully understand how black people are conditioned to hate their hair when you drop by their schools. In most institutions, both sexes are required to shave their hair. A few of the schools where girls don’t have to shave, it always has to be short and neat (not more than 3cm long). The trend extends further in life where our gorgeous kinks and curls are frowned upon whereas braids, wigs and weaves are worshipped; from politicians to lawyers to media folk and entertainers. As for the men, any guy who dares have a little bit of lengthy hair he can style up, he’s branded a mkora or basically someone who isn’t serious in life.
These rants may never come to an end…
But, I can’t cut it short yet; before we hear about how we were made to abandon our God and embrace a colonizer’s God. Now we are all here being the only race that believes in the white Messiah and not a God that looks like us (we were after all created in His/Her image and likeness) Ngai, Nyasaye, Enkai…
We can’t stoop so low as to be caught praying facing a holy mountain or believe in the significance of the holy Mugumo tree but believe in the whole Christmas hullabaloo. We don’t believe in pouring a little drink on the ground in honor of our ancestors but are okay drinking blood and flesh.
We can’t make sense of how we can petition our ancestors to pray for us but 100% believe the Virgin Mary or the Catholic Saints can do so.
We have abandoned and are indeed embarrassed of anything that reminds us of our backward culture. So primitive is everything African that we longer believe in the value of sacrifices, dowry, clans, mode of dressing, circumcision, medicine-men, rainmakers, holy grounds...
Why eat ikwa, mwanga, managu, gwaci, nduma, ucuru wa mukio; the very rich foods of our ancestors when there’s plenty of bacon, pizzas and macaroni and cheese. And you wonder why we are becoming so prone to diseases?
Finding a job in Africa is so hard because every company wants staff whose English is accent-free of their native language. Interestingly, French accents are so heavenly, Italian accents so damn sexy, Spanish accents Oh My So Romantic, British accents so professional, African accents, ugh, so primitive!
And, when we get sick, we don’t go to black doctors. Nah! White doctors are better right? So are their lawyers, and schools, and curriculum, and churches, and modes of dressings, and festivities, and music, and books, and housing, and lands. We all want to leave this miserable dry deserts of Africa and relocate to the far far away green and racist lands of America, Britain, Germany and Australia.
Did you know it only takes 2 generations to get rid of our blackness? Afro American Doria marries a Caucasian Markle, their bi-racial daughter Meghan marries a Caucasian; Harry, their daughter Lillibet is as Caucasian as any other Caucasian baby there is. And that ladies and gentlemen, is how easy it is to make your deep rooted chocolate high intoxicating beauty extinct.
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