Socially Savant

We are losing great black men daily. We are facing tragic headlines on a daily basis. Black women are wearing tragedy on their faces and this time not as a mask but as a mood, a mode and state of being. Real black affectionate and present black men don’t get the right credit, and their appreciation or acceptance only appears once they have tragically let us. We have men who are not looking for glory or shine, but when we see them we criticize them for showing their families affection. Fathers who kiss their daughters on the lips are alienated and seen as paedophiles. When all they are actually doing is grooming their daughters to feel comfortable in their own skin. They are teaching their daughters how to respect themselves and know when its real love and when they are being played by the opposite sex. However we drive home on the negative energy surrounding these black men. I look at the late Nipsey Hussle and now the late Basketball legend Kobe Bryant. Both these men are blac...

To be a daughter is a daunting task. The expectation of how you will turn out as an individual are larger than life. What the family, parents, siblings and society expect and require for your life to be is sometimes the greatest task and job you will ever have to embark on. Frustrations run high and balancing all this is sometimes something we desire to run away from. But not only on how to meet expectations but also how to meet them ahead of them being made publically known. Meet them without them being asked of you. To be there on the exact hour is large and too much for us at times. If I were to be so brave as to say being a black Zulu female that is jobless and childless the expectation is that I have ample time to support others since I have so much time and resources, it’s also slightly an insult to hear that as a childless woman you have failed. So why must you be let you loose from having adult tasks. Culture is almost set up to choke us as women. Something or ano...

I fussed and struggled to get to my inner strength. I started very slowly to remove myself from people and the regular things I was doing in my everyday life. I started to remove myself from the responsibilities in my church life and family life. Dating was a hard no. Trying to even look pretty within my skin and body was a difficult task to achieve. I decided to focus on me. It wouldn’t be the first time, I did such.  “It wouldn’t be the first time” was the last thing my pastor said to me when I lay in the hospital bleeding out. He said this after I told him it’s after visiting hours and he was going to get in trouble if he didn’t leave. He fist pumped me and looked straight into my eyes and said, “It wouldn’t be the first time”. I garnered so much strength from just those few words to remember that I’m a force. I’m powerful. That I am so much more and mostly so intelligent to just let myself slip out of life this way. This was not the bang I was looking for. I had 6 h...

There are relationships that will always remain close and dear to your heart. These are such trusted and loving relationships. I’ve always remained teachable in relationships I find myself in. I find the soul being elevated in the sight of authentic and realistic relationships. Where there is little to no reservation, bearing in mind I’m speaking about real relationships, not the kind where you  just kickin it . I’ve dated two men who have seen me as not just a woman in their lives but also a sister. Now we generally use these terms so loosely however as Africans we are relatively still in tune to our real African roots. We still look into the soulful spaces of the relationship we are in, it's how we excel in respect. I notice that resonating often in our lives. But I digress. The validation of the sister/ brotherhood in a relationship is almost as befitting as a gold star rating in your role as that person’s partner. Let me explain. When one can honestly feel at home in...

It all started with a tweet from a lady I respect and admire @KirtyBisset (Nov.16) that read, “Shout out to the fragile men.” I then replied to her saying that her tweet speaks to me my heart and that I wanted to write a blog about this very thing and she encouraged m e to go on and do it. I’ve been wanting to speak about the silencing, disrespect and abuse of men and how this has been ignored for far too long. My final wakeup call was when I realised that gender violence doesn’t really have a preference to which gender it will choose, it just violates. I have been reading up on this for years and my interest comes from a multitude of seen and heard stories amongst people I know. I know men who have been assaulted by women whom they had trusted and loved. I have watched women in my family abuse men physically or verbally. I have seen this reaction come out of anger and I have seen it come from pure malicious intent of trying to provoke a man just to see how far they can go. My...

A few days ago I posted on Facebook the following status: “Tonight a gentleman asked me why a girl like me is single. It took a lot out of me not to crumble on the floor and just weep. A lot. But hey… I’m still standing.” This incident and another conversation I had had with my mom a few weeks ago led me to write the reason why I’m annoyed by this question but also why I am unable to worship the institution of marriage. Hang tight this is going to be a very raw blog on why I hate the institution called marriage but I am still pro-marriage and the partnership dependant on how each couple would design it for themselves.  The man I mentioned above saw me at my daytime job and the manner in which he asked me carried pity and also a sense that something was wrong with me; that I couldn’t secure a ring. My response was so composed as I was at my job. But I explained to him that men and women think of marriage differently. For all my existence I’ve watched women aspire to the weddi...