Interracial Kissing...

Of Spokes and Spiders...
The other day I was telling some children why the Internet is called the web; literally an image of a spider’s house. A maze of lines each connected to the other.

So tonight I am checking out stuff on You Tube. I am looking at South Africa’s new hot video guy Khaya. He is asking “Should African Americans Call Themselves African Americans…” and this discussion is expanding …I listen to Alphacat (an African American) explaining the history of this term and he asks if there are Irish Americans and Italian Americans why not African Americans?
Anyway.
While wallowing in these clips, a couple of video widgets pile up on the side bar amongst them Oprah Winfrey’s “70% of African American women are single.”
This is You Tube style, the new face of television and telecasting. Gives you instant links related to what you are watching; meandering instantly and continuously, like a spider’s web.

I click on that and there are even hotter debates.
While on it another link crops up on the side bar and a white guy is explaining in a four minute shoot: “Why black women are great choices.” Like most You Tube video casters he has a nick name: Wm1with1bw4life…
As I watch his clip several more slither in.
I click: “Interracial Kissing.”
A black bloke is kissing a white woman with red hair. It is about 2 minutes long, quite intense kissing and you got to be to over 18 to check this. It was posted 4 months ago and has so far attracted 484 comments.
I go through the comments and I am confronted by the most horrific views. Opinions that mirror the human crisis. Because of the vile nature of the comments, the writers, use fake names. It is impossible to neither list all comments nor write all without a slight editing; but chief, is the contrasting nature of the views. Each thought stimulates a reply and with that like a true net (and spikes and spokes) a chain of more replies. Proving one reality. Racial tension and racial disharmony is always lurking in the shadows.
What interests me is how this simple “Interracial Kissing” clip has created such deep rooted sexual and racial prejudice and feelings. And the way these thoughts build up in four months proves these issues shall keep on mushrooming as long as this clip is on air.

“They should be shot and thrown in the river.”
“Damn. She has got a nice tongue.”
“Long tongue.”
“Fucking whore and fucking nigger.” (In Capital letters).
“I love to see a hot white girl with a black man; wish I could see what they do next.”
“This is disgusting”
“How old are you?”
“Her father would be proud.”
“Where can I find women with a tongue like that?”
“It’s so wonderful couple.”
“White power. Burn in hell, nigger lover. Your time will come when the white man regains control of North America. You will be first in line to be executed.”(This has Swastika signs too).

“Whatever is your power when your daughters are sleeping with our sons…?”
“Why are white people always talking about “we are loosing the country ...” if you are loosing who the fuck is winning? It sure ain’t us.”
“You are a nigger, so you will never understand …when my girlfriend says blacks smell she means “it’s kind of like when you go to the zoo…”
“Ten blacks broke into a house and raped a woman while forcing 12 years son to participate. I can list 100 more events.”
“Shut up fucking racist with micro dicks. I am dating black men and they are much better.”
“This is hot; she is probably not even white, maybe Hispanic, or Puerto Rican who knows.”
“No respectable white woman will lower herself like that. Kissing a black person is like sticking your tongue down a dog’s asshole.”
“He doesn’t seem to enjoy it…his eyes are partially open…might be gay.”
“I am really curious about black guys. My friends sneak to be with black guys and afterward they would sneak back to their white boyfriends. One friend told me she didn’t think she would ever get back to her normal tone because she thought her vagina was stretched to the max…”
“All the people that gave bad comments on this are white men that are jealous. What is interracial kissing anyway? What is the big deal? Kissing is kissing. Why this video? They did nothing special.”

AND SO ON AND SO FORTH.

This Weekend's Profile...

A small incident called Feeding and Dying. Life is funny, life can be tough; but this word, life, also means, struggle.
Honesty. Struggling is honest.
The struggle.
When Charles Darwin said survival of the fittest, he coined not just a phrase of the century but a life-old, statement. Even God would nod in agreement : “One of my children did say something honest.”
And so…

I am passing by. I hear kids screaming and yelling. What the heck. Youngsters always scream at the most minute things. It was... getting hysterical.
“Boris caught a mouse!”
This cat is always placid. I have seen him around. Lazy chap. Always mister nice guy.
Breaking News. There he was! Prancing, biting, checking the straggling creature. Yes, straggling…
“He is only teasing her.”
“How do you know it is a she?”
Kids question the most minute things. “The mouse is dead.”
“No he is not.”
“It…”
“It?”
“Oh yeh. We don’t know whether it is a he or a she.”
That’s right kids.
The mouse was playing dead.
Playing dead is a skill of survival. In war soldiers do it. It is documented throughout history. Mice are intelligent, that is why they are used in experiments.
“Oh, yes! The mouse is running away!”
You could tell whose side (David or Goliath?) the youngsters were on.
Now Boris the cat was coolly observing, paws ready, ears terse and tense, at the small, grey-black creature, trying to bolt, under the green grass, making a last dash.
The kids jumped and hollered.
Whiskers slightly flicking, as if un-disturbed, the feline animal trailed along, tail wagging, undeterred, ever ready…we were witnessing the master hunter in action.
And this is the theme of this piece. Calling it heroism is wrong, because heroes are fighters ; they wage war for a good cause, to save someone, help the drowning, the suffering and losers and victims. And life?
Life is always about winning. Against odds. A streak that causes strife. Road rage. Divorce and skirmishes. Lying down or standing up. Suicide or Victory. Either, or.
Cat is looking at his meal, mouse( he or she) is sniffing death; live or die. Of course Boris had his meal, the kids were so surprised. That is the calamity, the conclusion; inference and nexus.
“He ate her !”
“Not her… He ate it!”
Depending on where you are in the world, hunting (it)….is....
about somebody else’s food and the other’s funeral. There will always be wars and conquests. I don’t think I should call Boris the cat, a hero. What is it they say, sometimes? Anti-hero? Even that is too easy. You decide....

This Weekend's Profile

Some people are not aware they have good things.
They have to be reminded.



…They are too busy living…
Too unassuming to be bothered with tags and personal glory.
That is what comes to mind when I think of Rahmon Olugunna. A guy with no visiting cards, no brochures...a guy who makes no noise about himself.
On this sunny Friday, where music reigned and shoppers shopped, he was selling his paintings, at this Festival in Barking, East London. Amazing pieces of art.
Pictures can speak louder than sound or words. Images are like feelings. They are deep.
Rahmon Olugunna told me he was born in South West Nigeria and studied under the “late Rufus…”
Who is Rufus? I wondered.
“He was a great painter. He was called the African Picasso.”
True. I soon learnt that Rufus Ogundele (1946-1996) was a very colourful painter and one can see the influence but that is another story.
Rahmon said he has exhibited in Chicago in the USA. He has been doing this for fifteen years…
I could see he was not in the mood to talk too much. People were milling around his wonderful pictures. You know what?
Good stuff attracts…
Rahmon Olugunna gave us his number (+44) 7940-118938 and said if you like to buy his paintings email him at :
colourentertainer@yahoo.com

A photo from the past

Everyone was a teenager once…
Ilboru Secondary School, Arusha, north Tanzania, Autumn 1972.
We are all studying hard.
Main O levels exams are around the corner. We have just done sports, showered, now we are breezing in the late evening sun with tea mugs; waiting for dinner, then prep.
Prep meant more reading, more digging, more books.
Everyone wanted to do well and pass.
Ilboru was highly regarded those days with teachers from all over the world. You couldn’t be a lazy pupil and be at this school…You had to have very excellent grades to come here.
Boarding schools are intense places. We would be there for almost five months, away from home. The bondage amongst the young is incredible.
If you look closely you will notice we are all wearing jeans the new “bad boy” trouser of the early 1970’s. We would swap into bell-bottoms when going out to dance and meet the girls…
I was in a gang. The gringos. But the word gang didn’t mean guns and knives. It meant sharing similar tastes. Music, dancing, sports, arts, hanging out. Four years of sweet youth. A few months after this photo was taken by a boy named Emmanuel, I never met these guys again. In fact almost all of them have vanished from my life. Meciri, with glasses on the right, I heard, died. Bandido the second, was shot in 1981 in very mysterious circumstances. Actually, I was with him earlier that day before his demise. I had not seen him for nine years. He was a charismatic guy and you can tell by the way he is standing; like a model. He had been abroad studying and he was doing well.
Tony, on my left, passed away, last year.
I am the shy guy peering into the tea mug. What the hell is inside that cup? A fly? I was very broody. Really into myself, my music and my writing.
I don’t know what happened to Miro (from Zanzibar) staring into the distance, standing on my right. Although the soft spoken Miro was older and a class ahead, he loved hanging out with us, juniors.
Youth is a strange time and hanging out, the ultimate good time.
And what about Emmanuel the photographer? He was the unofficial multi-talented snapper of the school. Rarely spoke, always chuckled, patient, a budding bio-chemist. Never heard of him, never saw him ever since.
And those trees, behind us. Under them was a lovely stream. I can still hear the water dripping and chirping birds, wow...singing. Arusha has one of the most lovely scenes and retains wonderful landscapes, wild game tourist reserves, lakes and mountains. Serengeti where the famous "Lion King" Hollywood film story is based is not so far away from here. Beautiful Arusha is today the most expensive region of Tanzania.

HUKWE ZAWOSE- A photo from the past- London 1996

Gogo traditional musician, Hukwe Zawose, was simply, a one off.
Gabriel Prokofiev the London musician who stage managed him sometimes, called his work Tanzania's classical music. That is something.
Zawose had his own unique style.
He made everything musical. His voice had a multitude of pitches, melodies and sounds. He played what is known around the world as Mbira. In Tanzania we call it Ilimba or Marimba. His nephew, Charles Zawose toured with him world wide in his last days. They are both dead. But recently the Zawose family band which includes Hukwe's beautiful children has been touring the UK.


I saw master Zawose many times.
I cannot forget a concert at London's Barbican, 1996. A cold night. Audience dressed in coats and gloves. Later we posed.
Les Rickford the Sierra Leone photographer did not do a bad job capturing that special moment. Me, on the left, happy to be with the outstanding man (then in his 50's);  with that famous gap on his teeth, just, happy.
Earlier the legendary musician had shared the stage with Mali's Salif Kaita and other great singers. Hukwe Zawose danced, sang, growled, crooned, bellowed, chanted, screamed, all mellow, all gleeful, aided by his crafty fingers on the Ilimba. His death seven years later was as shocking as it was saddening.
But you know what? Such people, says this photo, never ever die.