Opportunity Seems to Come Out of Nowhere but Nah...

Wow, guys.

The world is changing before our eyes, is it not? When George Floyd's daughter said, "My daddy changed the world" she had NO idea.

We're seeing the domino effect of Black Lives Matter because hey let's face it, not all of us value even our own lives as much as we do white lives or white adjacent lives. Hell, I hear the police in Kenya are harassing black protestors in front of the US embassy and leaving the white protestors alone. 

But let's go back to the genesis of this - Colonialism and the myth of White Supremacy.

Our history has been erased. Who we were, what we are capable of...even now it continues to be erased. The lack of COVID in New Zealand celebrated. But what about Mauritius? Also have eliminated COVID. Nobody is celebrating it. No, the press is waiting for African bodies to start dropping in the streets to train their cameras and say "You see! Africans are dying of COVID in droves."

But here we are, continuing to defy expectations. 

Nobody is talking about it. Yesterday I was thinking about how in other ways, everybody is erased from history except for white men. According to history books, they did everything. But think about it. Marilyn Monroe offered to sit in the front row of a club so that they would let Ella Fitzgerald perform. That's the only evidence of activism I have of the people around JFK. What if, as his sidechick, Marilyn did some whispering in his ear about civil rights? But she's never mentioned in his history aside from anecdotally so we'll never know. The women are never mentioned. But who is leading Black Lives Matter protests on the streets right now?

Living through 'interesting times' as they say really brings home so many revelations to me. Do you think K-Pop stans will be mentioned in the official history books? How they drowned out the voices of racists with fan cam videos? How they flooded Dallas police snitch sites with fan cam videos? How they matched BTS one million dollar donation to Black Lives Matter with a million dollars of their own?

No, I expect that will be buried in favour of whatever speech Al Sharpton will eventually make.

But what has brought us here? I blame food.

You see I write a lot of historical romance for a living and in my research on what a regency household served for dinner or what Scots ate in the 1500s, what jumps out at me is the sheer blandness of the food. So they travelled around the world and found that not everyone was living with boiled apples and roasted venison. They discovered places which had tea, tobacco, and spices. They discovered silk. They discovered precious stones. They coveted.

But they had nothing to trade. Nothing these people would want anyway, so they decided to take. And the way to take would be to use the one skill that they have honed better than anyone else. Manipulation and lying. They turned Christianity into a weapon. They used guns as a tool of power and fear. They decided to use the colour of their skin as a status symbol. They wrote the history books and so they turned myth into fact.

 Centuries of conditioning later, and most people didn't even question it. Not white people, not black people, not Asian people. 

Very many people still don't.

Every day though, those people grow less blind. Thank you, Cheeto Satan, for showing everyone white supremacy's ass.

So here's where opportunity comes in.

A man named George Floyd was killed by four policemen. His funeral, in fact, was yesterday. In the face of the protests, it was easy to forget that at the centre of this latest uprising is a dead man. Yesterday's funeral brought it home to me with a bang. Man, I hate funerals.

Anyway, so.

A man was killed, the four policemen who killed him were fired. And then it looked like that would be the end of that. Except...a video of a man being chased by two white men and subsequently killed had just been doing the rounds. Ahmaud Abery's killers were yet to be tried and convicted. Breonna Taylor was shot in her bed by police, as she slept when they raided the wrong house. George Floyd's death, captured in HD and lasting eight minutes and forty-six seconds was just that last straw. 

It was too much really.

So 1+1+1 made infinity. First locally, then regionally, then countrywide, then international; the cry for justice spread like wildfire. Now it wasn't just justice for George Floyd although that remains the kindling. No, it's justice for everyone who has ever been unjustly killed or hurt by police brutality. It's a cry for an end to that particular scourge.

People are finally seeing the biggest gang in the world for what it is. A racket. A tool of imperialism designed to oppress and suppress rather than to serve and protect. Or rather, they serve and protect the authors of imperialism. They make sure you and I, stay in line. 

And now people are saying NO.

It seems to have come out of nowhere, this opportunity to change the world but it's actually the result of slow attrition. Starting with Trayvon Martin and that jury which set George Zimmerman free and birthed the Black Lives Matter movement. George Zimmerman showing his ass so that anyone with half a brain cell KNOWS that the jury made the wrong decision. Watching Philando Castile die on Facebook live, knowing that Tamir Rice's killers were still working like they did not kill a twelve-year-old boy. Then When They See Us came out and showed how police obtain convictions. And every day, the tide turned a little more. Let's not forget eight years of an Obama white house meant that the generation that is responsible for a lot of change, the K-Pop stans, the Parkland students, the little girl in Flint, the white girls challenging their parents, grew up knowing that a black president is just a thing that happens. And it all came to a head with this one death. Opportunity looks like it just sprang up and yet, every little thing contributed to it. 

Speaking of which, I saw this account on twitter complaining about how libraries always claim they don't have books by black authors in their roster and she knows they lying. So I replied that my books are available on Scribd, Overdrive. 

An hour later she got back to me about one of my books. Like fastest sale, read and book review I've ever had. So because she was looking for black authors, I had my books in online libraries, and I'm black, but had I not answered her post, the opportunity would not have come to the good end it did. 

So in order to take advantage of fate, there must be action. Positive, deliberate action that is met with appropriate REaction.

The Truth Shall Set You Free: Rest In Peace George Floyd

I wanted to wait until I was less er...upset about stuff, to write this post but then every time I turn around, something else has happened to pile on my upset. I came to the reluctant conclusion that I'm gonna be upset for a while. So while I wallow in it, I might as well share the pain.

So.

I was reading about Native Americans Before Colonization in preparation for this post because I wanted to start at the beginning. What I read was further upsetting to me not so much for the wilful destruction of a whole continent of people - that is old knowledge which I am used to - but its description in the telling. 

There is a soft turning away from all the truly awful things colonizers did to wrest the land from its owners. No mention of blankets infected with smallpox given as gifts. Oh no, just that the Natives got diseases from the settlers which killed them in large numbers.

And that is a common theme when Colonizers are describing their actions. The fact that Derek Chauvin had his foot in George Floyd's neck and kept it there for nine minutes, killing him, has authorities performing acrobatics not to call it what it is. 

Murder. 

Meanwhile, white Americans continue to be shocked and saddened that such a thing can happen in the utopia they live in. It's 'unprecedented' they say. We don't understand how this can happen. As if they didn't execute a 14-year-old boy for allegedly murdering two white girls in 1944 to name just one example.

Anyway, let us go back to the beginning, to how this America started. First, by clearing the land of its native inhabitants using disease, war and alcohol. To this day the descendants of those inhabitants live in reservations. It's their land, the whole of it, but they're still herded together and told, yeah, you can have that little bit for yourselves but that's it. Right now, they have the highest rate of infection of COVID-19 and no resources. 

But wait, that's not all. 

So after clearing the land of its original inhabitants, what did the colonizer do? He kidnapped Africans from their homes, put them in chains and brought them to America to work the land. They stole land, and couldn't even be bothered to work it themselves. No. They stole other people from their homelands, to come and work it for them.

On July 4th, 1776, the colonizers declared independence from their mother country. They said to England, "Nah, we don't want you supervising us as we oppress these other peoples. We want the freedom to do it ourselves."

And they still celebrate this day as if it was truly Independence of a country, making a fair bit of hullabaloo about it, calling themselves the greatest nation on earth and other utter bullshit pronouncements. All to cover up the fact that all they did was transfer the title from one colonizer to another. Or rather, the mother colonizer transferred title to their migrants. "America" is not independent. It's still colonized. That's why y'all have a "special relationship" with the UK.

The wabeberu are still very much in charge.

Unlike other places that were given political independence even though economically, the colonizers still hold tight to the purse strings, for America, it's different. Maybe the closest example of what America is, is what South Africa used to be under apartheid. The difference is that the South Africans were official about their policies and the Boers were not in the majority, while Americans kept changing the name of the game from Slavery to Jim Crow to MAGA. Whatever it's called, what it is, involves keeping minorities as lesser than.  Perpetuating the narrative that white is truly some sort of might.

Now.

Let's talk about how it's all coming down.

Do you believe in Karma? The ancestors? Curses? I truly believe that with their actions, continuously and without remorse, the colonizers of America have brought curses upon themselves. Not just because both Native Americans and West Africans have a long history of magic/voodoo and the ancestors are very active in their lives. But the land itself was bound to rebel sometime. It's taken a long time. Nearly five hundred years. But the chickens, they are coming home to roost.

The supreme irony is that the colonizers are the architects of their own destruction in the person of Donald Trump. You see, because of their actions, little white children go to sleep every night and have nightmares about uprising. About the people, they have oppressed for generations rising up and killing them all. 

That fear is what rules their days. 

It informs all of their actions. 

And that fear led them to elect that madman Donald, just because America had elected before him, it's first 'Black' president.

Now they did that because they thought Donald Trump was going to cement the destruction of minorities and for sure, he's made some half-assed attempts. There are still children in cages. ICE continues to deport anyone of brown or black skin. 

But the people who are most hurt by his policies, are the very people who voted for him. America has on its hands a dictator similar to Idi Amin who is controlled by the Russians. They are aiding Russia to destroy them, just to continue to perpetuate white supremacy. 

It's poetic I tell you. 

Only the universe could come up with this shit.

And the universe is in on it, for sure. It has come in and swept the land. In the same way that colonizers brought illness to the natives, the earth has brought illness to America. The two countries with the highest death rates for this virus; the US and then the UK. And it is because of years of inbreeding, racists breeding racists, teaching each other that they are some sort of superior species who will always have other people to take the blows for them. The Africans, the Asians, the minorities...

Well, and it's true that American minorities are hard hit because they are poor, they are the essential workers and they are the most neglected by health care. But that is bringing another thing to the fore and that is the sheer third world nature of American society. 

Everything has been exposed. All the flaws. There's nowhere to hide anymore. There's no one that can believe the lies when the truth is right there for everyone to see. 

Blue Lives don't Matter, they Murder. 

No, that Black Man did not Do Something to cause his death. 

It's not about Following the Law.

There are Two Americas.

And so now, even the white people who would have feigned ignorance and acted obtusely are forced to deal with everything. 

Racism. 

Oppression. 

Capitalism. 

The dumbing down of America. 

The fact that America has never been great. 

They are forced to face the truth at last.

And once the truth is faced, it sets you free.

If George Floyd had to die on that tarmac, calling his mama, let it not be for nothing. It's time to break the curse.

Welcome to Book Launch Day!

Cinderella By Any Other Name goes live today. Happy Launch Day!

I'm dedicating this launch day to Rep. Ilhan Omar who is a former Somali refugee and now a US congresswoman who is receiving a lot of flack this week for calling out Israel. I guess this is how South Africa was viewed in the eighties by the world huh? Where the oppressed were the terrorists and the oppressors were the good guys. And to say otherwise is apparently - in this case - antisemitic.
I don't care, call me antisemitic if you like. Israel is absolutely, completely, no two sides about it, in the wrong.
Palestine is experiencing apartheid. And Rep. Omar is being bullied into resigning over simply pointing it out. Its racism is what it is. It's racism and prejudice because she's an African and a Muslim. Why do people allow this bullshit to continue?
Anyway, back to the book launch.

Do you fancy a Muslim, Arranged Marriage, Coming of Age story that is not a romance. I mean sure there is some sex - married people sex - but its not really meant to titillate you. I'd like to know how many of you can relate but I know you won't say so if you do. Married people keep their secrets right? Well, maybe you can discuss it among yourselves in your married people book clubs.

I love to spark conversation, especially controversial conversation but one thing I've realized over the years is that very few people are willing to have sincere and honest discussions about the hard truths right? So we're all living in our little pods and thinking, "this is only happening to me." and its such a huge revelation to realize that other people go through the same things too.
Last month when I was ovulating, I had the most horrible back pain. I couldn't even straighten up. And I googled ovulation back pain on the internet to see what could be done about it. At the end of one of the articles I read was the phrase: "Another reason to look forward to menopause."
I almost collapsed and died right there because all this time I've been thinking I'm the only weirdo on the planet looking forward to menopause. Yep I can't wait for the day I stop menstruating. And I thought I was the most progressive thinker in the universe who didn't think that somehow menopause was the end of womanhood.
That article opened my eyes. Probably every single being who menstruates looks forward to menopause but MEN assume that it's a horrible thing because many of them see us as life support systems for vaginas. So we must be heartbroken not to be able to have these 'womanly functions' that indicate we can have their babies. It all makes sense now.

So anyway, shout out to you all if you can relate to any part of this book. If anything rings authentically true to your life. I'd love to talk to you about it. I'm all about that life. So click on the link, cop your copy and let's get this party started.
The price goes up after today.

The State of the Book Launch

I did not watch Trump's speech because well, it's not like he's my president. But Van Jones posted a few clips of his reaction on my timeline, so I at least know that it was poop and cookies. He said Trump was happy about freeing Alice Walker with one hand and yet blase about taking immigrant children from their parents and human trafficking them, as well as the fact that federal workers have not been paid for months because THE WALL - with the other.

You know I knew people like Trump when I was in kindergarten. I told you I was the only black kid in my class right? And I had my own personal group of bullies? These two, three or five Indian girls. I don't know, I never counted. They'd surround me at break time and lunchtime, taunting me, teasing me. I dealt with them by ignoring them. They did not like that.
But then I had a birthday party and I think my mother invited the whole class. I think two people came. One white girl who basically dropped off a present and jetted and one of the Indian girls. I was sooo...flabbergasted because I didn't even know she was invited.
She further proceeded to discombobulate me by being so nice to me, my brain almost exploded. My mother was being her usual effervescent self, so happy that I 'had a friend' in school; and my little Indian torturer was so mesmerized she told me 'your mother is so beautiful."
Well she was, really.

So I had this cognitive dissonance where the girl who bullied me every day for a week was glued to my side at my own birthday party, stopping from socializing with anyone else, and acting like we were best friends.
Trump is like that Indian girl. He's a racist when he's around his racist friends but when he's talking to Van Jones and Kim Kardashian he cares about the incarcerated. But mostly he's a sociopath with no actual emotions of his own. He's just reacting to outside stimuli like a chameleon.
The thing with these racists is that they get confused about who they are because on an individual basis, they may get along with a member of the minority they discriminate against. So they use that as proof to themselves that they cannot absolutely be racist.
"I have a black friend."
"My wife is Mexican."
"My stylist is gay."

It's a curious dichotomy of living to realize that life is not black and white.
That's why Liam Neeson could walk around for a week looking for a black man to kill and not feel even a little bit like a racist. It's the environment. Did you know that the Klan was a distorted, corrupted rendition of the Scottish clans? They used to burn crosses to summon the clansmen to war. and now the Klan burns crosses to foster fear among black folk.
That's how they made America great.
Yes I know the Irish and the Scots are two different er...countries? Isles? But the Irish were just as racist especially when they were fighting each other and poor as fuck. When you have low self-esteem, you're always looking to find somebody whose neck can be constantly under your foot. It's why black men support Trump. Because him being a racist does not trump him being a misogynist. Even if they're on a 'lower tier' than your standard 'white misogynist racist' they at least feel that they are higher than women.

Joke's on them though because they are second from the bottom. At the top of this tier, at peak humanity and awesomeness, is African women.
Yes!
Deal with it.
We carry the entire world on our shoulders, uncomplaining and that is why Nadia doesn't even fight when she's told, marry this guy, or we end up on the street. She carries the responsibility of her family on her shoulders, just like all other women on this damned continent. Next tier from us is of course, black women from elsewhere and then the rest of you can arrange yourself according to the level of trash you're at.
Not saying African women do not have a level of trash. We absolutely do. Most of it is buried under mountains of family crap. And just like Nadia, we all probably need help.
Book launches Valentine's Day.

The African Diaspora - Week in Review

Africans at home and in the diaspora are making me happy. Taking my mind off this blatant human trafficking that is happening in the US with immigrant children and the usual mess in the Middle East.
Guys?
The government of the United States is trafficking children. You heard it here first.

Anyways, so Africans.
I read Romelo Lukaku's story yesterday. He's a Belgian midfielder (or is it defender? I'm not sure) of Congolese descent. He was born in Belgium and he speaks Lingala in addition to four other European languages. I was born and bred in Kenya and I can barely speak Kiswahili let alone Bukusu. It's making me sad for myself.
Anyway, I digress.
Lukaku's story hit me in the feels because of how it reminded me of my child's childhood in many ways. The obsession with football. The making do with what's available without complaint. The closeness with his grandad. The determination to play professionally. The desire to make life better for his mother.
I was reading his story but it was like it was my son who wrote it.

Now, where his story diverges is that he actually achieved his dream to play for Anderlecht by the time he was sixteen. He did it with the absolute belief that makes mountains move for you. I am a stan. Romelo Lukaku is the kind of strong I aspire to be. The kind of strong I wish for my kid.

Then there was a Therese Okoumou - I hope I spelled that right - who climbed the Statue of Liberty to protest the trafficking of children - okay the snatching of children away from their parents in the name of "immigration laws". I have a sister called Theresa. I know, irrelevant. I just wanna associate myself with her somehow. She was awesome. When I think of my fear of heights alone...
Anyway, moving on, we have a number of people to get through.

All African teams are out of the world cup, but not all diasporans. Eight in Belgium and fourteen in France, if I'm not mistaken would be eligible to play for African teams. So we're still represented even if the World Cup has become Euro '18. Special shoutout to Senegal and their coach though. They played well. Really well. And I look forward to hearing good things from them.
On the continent, Zimbabwe has legalized medical cannabis. I really feel we should promote the use of cannabis over alcohol because the former does not turn you into a shadow of your former self. We have an addiction problem, and if people need to get high, better to do it with something that isn't addictive.
In Kenya, poor lives are mattering today with a march to make sure police shootings stop. So shout out to black lives matter for the inspiration.
Lastly, here's a preview from the first ever post-apocalyptic gay African romance. You didn't think I'd forget to plug myself, did you? It's like you don't even know me. :)

Musings From An African Citizen of the World

Just watched the Work video and marveling how that song is just not dying. I'm so proud of my girl +Rihanna . Anti is slaying, as it should. All hail the queen.

Detailed analysis of why #Anti is the music you didn't know you needed in your life is fodder for it's own post. This one is a bit darker and probably a whole lot more depressing. Do you read Katie Hopkins? She writes for the daily mail. I don't. But my sister tagged me in an article she wrote about Harambe (correct spelling: Harambee) and how his gorilla DNA was much more helpful to the world than the child's undoubtedly tainted one. Now we were all sitting on our high horses judging his mother at the time for letting the kid escape so I didn't really think anything of it. Then I read the article that you can see by clicking on her name and I realised that she was just another bigot. 

According to Katie, this isn't at all true. She teaches her kids that we are in fact, not equal.

The thing is I get prejudice. I get feeling superior to others. I do it all the time....

Yes.

I do in fact think I'm better than you.

(Is there intelligent life on earth?Yes but I'm only visiting)

 Not just me as a person, but Africans as a whole. I feel like we're stronger, more resilient, beautiful with or without make up and right into old age. No need for face lifts, nose jobs, or lipstick to feel fierce. We woke up like this. We're slaying. We're intelligent. We're taking over the world one person at a time. We're super confident, we have good hair, we have good genes, we're self aware, we respect the earth. Ain't nobody got nothin' on us. 

I'm not ashamed of it. I'm not ashamed that I feel like I'm better than you.

So if Katie Hopkins wants to get her Aryan master race on that's fine.

Where we part ways is when she takes her so called superiority and use it as a tool to bludgeon others with it. Put other people down; become toxic and negative. Promote hatred. That is when I begin to wonder at this so called superiority her kind like to peddle. Katie Hopkins, +Piers Morgan +Donald Trump  thee house slave +Wendy Williams. Their philosophies are based on putting other people down: on making other people feel as bad about themselves as they probably do. It's ill mannered, it's unkind; It makes me think that their so called master race tendencies are based on fear and a sense of inferiority rather than a genuine belief that they're better than everyone else.

It was the undocumented immigrant valedictorian from Texas who actually brought this to mind. I saw her on CNN and then ran across an instagram post featuring her. The comments under the post...man. Talk about jealousy and envy. People writing about how she must have been helped to get that 4.59 GPA and she 'stole' the scholarship from someone more deserving and blah blah how dare she blah blah throwing it in our faces...It struck me about how unhappy people love to spread their unhappiness.

 Katie Hopkins and Piers Morgan write for the daily mail. This cannot be anyone's goal in life. Tabloid is too good a term for that rag. It must be so depressing to have your opinions only good enough for that. Especially when you once had a show on +CNN . Poor baby; life must really suck for you Piers.

And Donald Trump...people justify his opinions by saying he's a billionaire so he must know what he's talking about. They justify all the stupid things he says by saying 'but he has money'. Money is the greatest blindfold of them all huh? If someone has money they must also be intelligent. Never mind how they got the money. As long as they have it. It's what holds us back in this here country. Looking up to the guys with (stolen) money. Anyway, back to the Donald and let's do a tiny comparative analysis with +Steve Jobs. When Steve Jobs was at +Apple; profit. When Steve Jobs isn't at Apple; loss. Now Donald Trump; how many times has he filed for bankruptcy? How many times has he been sued for defrauding people of their money? How much money did he inherit? How much has he grown what he did inherit? He seems to lurch from one lawsuit to another, filing for bankruptcy and fighting with women he deems 'ugly'...seeing as how he's such a prize *Crowley voice*.

I almost hope that the Donald wins. If this is what America really wants then they absolutely one hundred percent deserve him. There has never been a better time for the rest of the world to not be affected by what happens in the U.S of A. So if they want to ruin their country, their economy, their reputation and their future by electing this man as president, they should go right ahead. As Africa we look more to the East than the West right now for trade and development and more and more, we are looking towards each other. Europe has +Angela Merkel. She's ready to take over as supreme leader of the universe and do a much better job of it than anyone else has in a long while. So let's do this!
I will be saying I told you so though.

n.b.
A gay nightclub in Orlando Florida was shot up and the death toll keeps rising. I understand it's at 59 now. The motive of the shooting is unknown because the gunman is dead. According to the Donald it's ISIS doing and he and Stacey Dash are talking about how it would not have gone unanswered in 'his regime' which is pretty ironic because he's one of the people who have given permission for hate to flourish. It's okay for America to Hate Again. These are the consequences. And who would he 'answer' to anyway? The gunman is dead so?
I personally was touched by one guy who was in the bathroom texting his mommy about how he was about to die. That is the nightmare text that keeps my phone on all night if my son is out of the house. That's the only thing I fear in this life. A text that tells me my son is never coming home again. I don't know what that mother did. I expect she got up and went to the club to see if she could rescue him/ offer herself in his place/ bludgeon the gunman to death...those would have been my actions anyway. And if I was too late to do any of those I would have hunted down his entire family and killed them all. I kid you not. R.I.P to all those random victims of someone's unhappiness.
When will it stop?