politics

Could African American people please look at their Mexican neighbours and stop thinking that they're the only marginalised group in the United States.

And if, God forbid, America were to look a little further abroad than the Statue of Liberty they would see that their war games and plans of world domination mean that they undertake world responsibility, and there are problems being caused by America's conservative anal imperialism that affect more than just people of the West. I am so sick of our standards being so affected by the outside. Africa! Come on! The world has turned their back on us, exploited us and abandoned us, and still we crawl at their feet begging crumbs they stole from our kitchen. Where is our pride? Our unity, our identity, our power? We must stop squabbling amongst ourselves over the bare land and closed minds they left us with. They raped our women, stole our brother and sisters across continents and taught them to think that we are not the same. Divide and conquer. Somehow our culture looks Westwards as a point of reference as if that is where we are from.

Things are changing. Africans try to modernise to match Eurocentric cultures who tell us that the whole world is like this, difference being that when we look out the window, we can see that it's not true! Don't be so stupid, they are making us look like fools. We need to remember our culture, our sense of community and raise each other out of the darkess, charge into the light of empowerment and equality.

We are a unique beautiful people, and we need to stop playing their game; right now they call the shots, and that's why we have bullets in our backs. I want to study African philosophers. I want to hear about Africa before colonialism. I want our commodities to stop being sold back to us at double the price because they will not let us industrialize, because we'll be able to do things for ourselves. I want them to stop fuelling wars on our continent, stop sacrificing my brother, my sister, my parents, my child, my life.

At the same time, if Africa is to make any progress, we need to get with the program. Women have minds, and ambition, and voices. I want a black female president running the show. Education is essential. Tradition is only useful if it helps us move forward as a people, so we learn to use condoms to save each other's lives. We learn to identify mistreatment, and learn to speak out against it, until the shame and embarassment and backwardsness of judging an individual on the colour of their skin is so shameful that no one will ever think to do it.

We must redefine our standards. Of beauty, of politics, of industry, of identity. Stop letting them make us feel bad because we can't speak their language fluently enough for them to hear me tell them about how they raped us.