Today the rant is taking a more serious tone, and do not be shocked. I am a very deep individual. So my question is; when we kicked the colonialists out of Africa how much did they leave with us? We may have physically removed them from power but did we do it mentally? To me the answer is, hell no. Unfortunately for most of us (Africans that is), the white man is still the boss. Still better than us. Still more deserving of our respect than any other black man. You may be thinking that I was born too late to be complaining about colonialism but I'm not. It's still here. It's just that now people have kind of accepted it.
A while ago I was talking to a friend who told me that when she was younger she had an aunt who would tell her to 'shower so that she is as clean as a mzungu'. As opposed to what? As dirty as an African? REALLY? So what impression did she expect to leave on the child? Probably none. She was most likely just repeating something she'd heard as a child thinking it was harmless. This leads me to the next stage of my rant. I have noticed that most of my friends seem to have the idea that the closer you are to white (in skin colour) the better-looking you are. I've seen girls drool over some-to be polite- notverygoodlooking guys just because they are lightskinned. Now don't get me wrong. We all have our preferences and that's allowed but when someone tells me that 'people look better with a lighter skin colour' I'm led to believe that this idea didn't just come out of nowhere.
Another area that I find interesting is hair. To me beautiful hair is hair that has body. I don't like wispy hair. I don't think hair has to be straight to be beautiful. I think hair looks great when braided or in dreadlocks. I am usually alone in this line of thought 'cause almost everyone else thinks that 'kinky' hair is bad and/or ugly. I personally don't have an issue with weaves,extensions or chemicals but I don't think that other races have better hair than we do (I've actually also heard other people say that). I am a bit ashamed to admit that I sometimes watch the Tyra show and there was an episode about 'black' hair. It was interesting that there are black people who want to have mixed race children so that their kids can have 'better hair'. Kinda sad. Quite shocking.
I won't even get started on neocolonialism. We all know how its affecting us. Heard it enough times. The carrot and stick thing that keeps getting pulled on our governments i.e. do as we say or we'll deny you aid or stop funding that project... I can't do anything about that right now, all I can do is hope this trickle down colonialist mentality isn't as ingrained as I think it is and make sure that when I have kids they KNOW that beauty comes in very many shapes, forms, colours and hair textures.
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