Reflecting on Ntsiki Mazwai open letter to Black people: Our engagement on Afrocentrism must go beyond the weave, the suit and Model C schools. Our debates must be structured, non patronising and provide answers on what needs to be done on driving Afrocentric epistemology. We cant continue arguing from a position which in its reflection is in the main in comparison to whiteness. I have a problem when issues of Blackness are explicitly made in comparison to Whiteness, in modern day Africa what makes a suit unAfrican, a weave an equation to Whiteness or engaging in English a sign of enslavement. In our analysis we cant be ahistorical we must acknowldge that Africans are products of slavery, imperialism and colonialism. As we reflect on the current challenges facing the Black society and Africans in general we must do so knowing that our degradation was systematic and took years to perfect and the most fundamental instrument used was to break the Black family unit and seperate a men from his family. This was done using race, religion, patriarchy and other divide and rule tactics used to alienate one race, gender and class from the other. In our quest to reposition our identity, culture and history we must refuse to patronise those who are entrenched in the status quo, we must speak our truth as we see it, convincingly and thoroughly. Moreover provide solutions on what needs to be done, yes we take our children to model c schools, we wear suits, we speak English and wear weaves but this does not address the fundamental problems. Were do we see ourselves in the global space and how do we position ourselves beyond the weave and the Whitemens suit? Sydney Dhlamini
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 19:41:55 +0000