The Question of Race- The Tallaght Debacle

Racism is an incurable disease. That is what I have come to learn in my 22 years on planet Earth.

Actually scrap that. I knew nothing about this disease until about 12 years ago when I left Nigeria and came “abroad”. It has been a pleasant experience too as I already wrote about in one of my previous posts, Heart Grows Fonder, but sooner, rather than later, the “Question of Race” started come into play.

It first happened when I was in primary school, within the first few months of my education here and one of the teachers questioned me, “you don’t mind if I call you black do you?” I heard my classmates gasp, as though what she had said was something bad, but I did not know what it was back then.

Racism was not a thing to me. Growing up in Nigeria, people were simply people to me. Of course I was aware of the differences in physical appearance. I knew that my favourite James Bond at the time, Pierce Brosnan, coincidentally Irish, looked different to me.

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Judgment

You walked past a homeless man a while back. You called him George in your head. It was a cold, bitter morning and you were in a rush to get to some shelter as the elements attacked every crevice of your exposed face. You still remember thanking God for small favours and the fact that you had bought a pair of gloves yesterday.

The bridge that you were crossing was a bit slippery- that was how cold it was- there was a thin sheet of ice over the wood and you found yourself walking slowly, to prevent yourself from falling face first, something which, was a very likely possibility.

So there you were, in your big winter coat, combat boots and your newly acquired gloves, shuffling your way across the bridge.

A man was walking towards you, from the other side of the bridge and in between you sat another man. A homeless man. George. He was wrapped in a blue shawl, a huge hat covering his head and his money tin held out in his outstretched hands, un-gloved as they were.

The Question of Being Too Much

Am I too much?

It was a fear that popped up out of no where. A concern that annoyed me until became a realisation that plagued on all of my insecurities.

I have a previous post titled “Enough”, published sometime last year, and that had been written in celebration of the fact that the person that you are should be enough for the people around you and more importantly, to yourself.

But is there such a thing as being too much? Caring too deeply? Feeling too strongly?

And does that scare people away? And if it scares them away, does that mean that they were never meant to be in your life in the first place? Or is that just another lie that we have been conditioned to tell ourselves, in order to shed the blame from ourselves?

Lover’s Hate

“Stronger than Lover’s Love is Lover’s hate. Incurable, in each, the wounds they make.”

― Euripides, Medea

I didn’t believe it when I was told that there was a thin line between love and hate. I never understood how trully blurred the lines of love and hate were and the many shades of grey that lay in between those two emotions. And then I came across Euripides’ quote (on the door of my wardrobe, of course) and I was forced to ponder on the verity of his words.

 

Love-  passionate, and by definition, abstract.

What does it mean to love someone? To love another human being means the willingness to do anything for that person, regardless of your own personal happiness. You  wish them the best in everything that they do, even if it means leaving you behind.

It is an abstract thing and yet it’s  tangible effects are seen around us every single day- in the way we treat each other, our careers, and our friendships. We pour our all into these things-our time, our energy, our money, our emotions and our vulnerabilities.

We trust those that we love to never betray us because they have seen us for who we are and they have stayed. We put our energy into the things that we love in the hope that they will bring us success and we treat those around us with respect because we would like them to treat us in the same regard, with the same level of respect.

2017- And That’s That

And so 2017 has come to an end. I was under so much pressure to write something to sum up the whole year. In fact, it was stressing me out so much that I nearly decided that I wouldn’t bother anymore.

What’s in a year anyway? A day? An hour? A minute? What is actually changing?

Nothing.

The 1^st of January 2018 is just another day in the grand scheme of things. But to many, it is another day that signifies so much more.

So many resolutions made already and so many of them broken before the new year has even started.

I am still amazed at how fast it all flew. Scrolling through my social media, I can see that it is of a general consensus that 2017 was the worst and best year simultaneously.

Betrayal

The worse thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies.

It comes from people that are deeply rooted in your belief system, people that you have exposed your soul to and saw a reflection of yourself in.

It comes from those that you trust, the ones that you swear would never harm you on purpose or play with your dreams.

It comes from the people who you never expect it from.

It comes from those people that you love and who claim to love you back. It doesn’t necessarily have to come from a romantic relationship either. It could be betrayal from a family member or perhaps a close friend.

This betrayal hurts so much because at the end of the day, who knows you better than those who you have bared your very being to?

Poisons Like Grudges

One of the most painful and destructive emotions in the human spectrum is holding a  grudge that will not go away.

It always starts out small- someone did something to offend you. That small knot forms in your stomach but decided to let it slide.

Or maybe you want to talk about it but because of one reason or the other, you can’t.

So you bottle it in, like a pungent poison and refuse to bring it up, in the hopes that you will get over it eventually.

But like a pungent poison, it eats into your soul until you can no longer ignore it. Soon everything that person does irritates you, you run out of things to talk to them about because your anger towards them gets in the way, you don’t want to be around them because their very presence reminds you of everything that they have ever done to you and you just continue to dwell on it.

It sits heavy on your chest day in and day out.

The African Condition

A bit out of the norm and I apologise in advance if I manage to offend anyone. The news that hit the world recently dug such a hole in my heart that I had to say something. The time to complain is over. The time to blame has gone by. Now is the time to act, to make a change so that future becomes a brighter and more equal one.

So it happened again. The world shocked me. I didn’t think that it was possible anymore for humans to sink any lower but once again, like the universe likes to do once every while, it reminded me that we were nothing but a blemish on the surface of the Earth. We are nothing but parasites- intent on using the earth’s resources but unwilling to face the consequences that these actions entail. 

A bit harsh, I know but that is exactly how I feel on this fateful day.

In all honesty, the news about the slavery in Libya comes to me as no surprise. What shocked me the most was the fact that it was us Africans that were treating each other as such.

A Tale of Peter and Jane

So, I’ve been quite disillusioned the last few weeks and I feel like that has played a factor in why my creative juices seem to have just dried up on me.

This was mostly due to the fact that I had applied for something that would have opened up a world of opportunities for me. I had been so hopeful, so optimistic, with an overwhelming feeling that things were finally going my way again, that the universe was finally aligning in my favour and things would just go right for once.

And then, like all things seem to want to do in my life, it all went left and that hope was brought crashing down and I couldn’t even be sad anymore. I was just angry. I was angry at the world. Angry at the people who had refused me this opportunity but most of all, I was just angry with myself.

Beautiful Things

“Travel and tell no one,
live a true love story
and tell no one,
live happily
and tell no one,
people ruin beautiful things.”

– Kahlil Gibran