As a people, black in particular but humanity at large…and I make the very deliberate distinction because black consciousness as an idea is ailing and dying an egregiously painful death somewhere in a dark, dingy corner. But let the record show that pro-black is in no way, shape or form anti-you if you are not black.
But by the barometer or litmus test of the Steve Bikos of the world, what are the limitations of that consciousness? Is it simply cognisance of your value or purely political? And why such a question?
The answer, I’m afraid is not as profound as the question itself for a wise man will often learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer. Cliche? Absolutely and the root of my ache.
We are as a people, a consumerist nation. We gulp down religions, nonsensical theories about alien life, 7 years bad luck and star signs while we dismiss what is African as superstition. We bear primary responsibility for the base level we have been reduced to as the people of origin for it is we that relegate the African there.
This is how we run around spewing concepts like 16 days of activism versus teaching our boy children what it really means to be a man.
Women empowerment as a construct is an outpatient program that treats the symptoms when the ailment is in fact an inadequately groomed man. Black consciousness by its very definition purports to remind the black man that he is a king. A king of origin and by virtue of that fact, a black woman is a queen that should be treated as such.
Days of activism will not do. A daily collective cognisance perhaps. And even though I may have gone all the way around the elbow to reach the thumb, perspective was a necessity.
In doing my part, I wrote a poem to you and I and any man who feels they have even the smallest of right to lay their hands upon our beautiful sisters.
Looking in the mirror
Yay though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, ke phala malapalama dikokotlo – black and proud… and I had the gall to call myself a man.
I called myself a man as I squeezed my hands tightly around her fragile throat and watched the tears escape her swollen eyes as she clung to life desperately for the sake of her child and because her love would not let me become a murderer… still I had the gall to call myself a man.- yay though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death- ke phala – sebhethe sa puleng… ke motlotlo.
I screamed at me… at myself, at my being “oirang tlhe nkgonne…How dare you?”
But it did not translate. I did not stop. She was a woman. She asked for it. She needed to be taught a lesson and class was in. This I told myself as the sense of my actions eluded me.
Yet still I had the gall to call myself a man. Yay though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death… I fear no evil. Nay… I fear what I have become.
Not translating still, I screamed at myself “this is not who we are and that queen…that queen…” I would not let the words through. I clung to my stupidity. I fostered a narrative where I was the hero of a tale and she the villain deserving of retribution… deserving of my boundless wrath!
The gall to call myself a man. Yay though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Ke phala. Phala e tona and today…. today I’m looking in the mirror… there’s no man there.
By Tiro Makhudu
