Are often not the onesBest positioned to see everythingFor what it really is-Like a person who’s never goneWithout light,Straining and struggling to seeIn the darkness,For their eyes are not accustomedTo the experience of thoseWho live in the shadows.Yet their privilege gives them powerThat no one else has,To change the order of things,To make the room […]
Read more "The privileged ones"Are we secretly hoping for a world Where one day “We’ll all get along” In a homogenous utopia Where no one’s skin has any colour And we all speak good English Treating each other like family Where no one cares About politics or war Or anything uncomfortable? That’s heavy on the homogenous And light on the utopia. […]
Read more "Homogenous Utopia"In many African languagesThe word for ‘white’Is often the same word usedColloquilly for ‘better’Or ‘superior’ or even‘Learned’.ChirunguSegoaIt is no wonder thenThat it seems that whenYou are in some postion ofGood fortuneHave good tasteProvide a quality serviceOr have some advantageThat has come your wayThen you can be said to ‘acting white’.Being good at something doesn’t mean‘Acting […]
Read more "On ‘acting white’"Accountability, done right,Hurts.People that have the courageTo call things outAre often portrayed as being So unnecessarySo contrarianSo unwilling to just let things beAnd let ‘our way of life’Go on.And yet there is nothing more constantTo mankind than change.And it is unlikely that change will happenWithout frictionWithout uncomfortable conversationsWithout pushing back on thingsWe’ve let ourselves overlook.The […]
Read more "Thorns in the flesh"The faces we see on a daily basis, Familiar though we don’t really know their stories. The faces in frames on our living room wall, We may not see them daily but their stories are embedded in our own. The contacts on our phone Scrolling past people we once spent many hours with While other […]
Read more "Contemporaries"Is a way of hiding. How can you not see it? I don’t see how God could create so much diversity Only for us to close our eyes to it? If we are all made in the image of God, Yet we are not all alike It means we are several manifestations From a single […]
Read more "I don’t see colour"Is often code name for something else, Or at least a blanket phrase for a number things: Poor communication skills such as the inability to articulate what you can and cannot do, Overstated ambition, where, in fear of being underestimated you take a bite of more than you can actually chew, Or good old fashioned […]
Read more "Incompetence?"I do not feel at home in a hut. I have never lived outside Africa either. I do have a Shona name. No middle name. And I insist on being called by it. English is my strongest written and spoken language yet there are certain things deep in me that i can only express in […]
Read more "There is more than one way to be African"The trouble with the narrative of victimhood Particularly when it comes to feelings of being discriminated against, Is that it tends to over-simplify the circumstances That play out. Creating perfectly innocent victims and unforgivably selfish villains And often downplaying inconvenient truths Or exaggerating offences. Its not there really aren’t uneven scales at play Or that […]
Read more "Narrative"How much evidence do you need that is contrary to what you currently believe For you to change your mind? There’s a difference between not having enough proof To support a claim And choosing not to acknowledge what’s right in front of you. How much good does a man have to do To prove that […]
Read more "Proof"
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