The mindset of Afrophobic souls and actors
smacks of being badly scared as opposed
to being bold, of loathing instead of loving,
of dogged closedmindedness and arrogance
in place of open-mindedness and modesty—
principally by virtue of ignorance of self.
Colonial hangovers manifest in various ways.
If the marcher is phobic and scared; then
the target is anxious and scarred. The activist–
as a marionette or a minion, a confusionist—
has an avid hunger for fussing and fooling.
It can only be rooted and truthfully poised
when he or she realizes, retunes and revives
his or her soul and heart, her center—Africa.
He or she is futilely seeking to run away from self.
His or her mischiefs are an echo of historical scars.
Hence, his or her thing with modern passes and all.
When you’re hit hard by an unseen impostor,
you turn around and look about, only to see
your hungry, angry brother in the vicinity, and
then the frustration — not reason—utters prowler!
Misdirecting anger, misdiagnosing the real illness,
you incriminate and harm your desperate but
innocent brother. If he has hit you, it’s his wage.
Sadly, Afrophobia is a boastful, self-hating bug.
It has fawning and overzealous house strivers
acting in the most revolting and confusing
of ways, and at its worst; swearing, denying
and denouncing their African lineage and race.
It drives one to seek to run away from oneself.
It makes one fight for or to be content with bread
crumbs and menial jobs. One begins to feel high,
done a huge favor and treasured by the authorities.
It has its snitches, lapdogs and blind “house niggas”.
It overspills with a wild dosage of narcissism
that’s often fearful, doubtful and loathing
of itself. How can it be expected to be proudly
rooted in Africa, to have self-image and a basis
when it hardly uses the scales and lens of Africa
to see itself and the world, and everyone else?
It’s not deep-rooted in Africa, psychologically.
It’s like a rootless tree. A rootless tree is as good
as a dying or drying one. It’s wood or firewood
for carpenters, cutters, cooks, crooks and hunters.
Afrophobia is a beast that denudes one of dignity
and direction. It sees a foe in one of its own kind.
It’s curious, counterfeit and counter-productive.
For, fast, it fumes on behalf of hidden merchants.
The real pushers and pullers of strings or systems,
it protects or shields in the name of self-love. Our.
Mine. Its our is an hour that hasn’t arrived at all.
Its mine or land is lent. It’s landless and loveless.
Forgive it, for, it doesn’t see far, it perceives what
the system wants it to see. It has an identity crisis.
Woe to the-behind-the scenes masterminds,
wolves, heirs, felons, mercenaries and backers.
The powerful and wily pioneers and racketeers.
The covetous barons and political flip-floppers.
Mad moles, chancers, chameleons and cronies.
Dear Africa is no longer entertaining that drivel
or taking things lying down. She’s fighting back.
The instigators of the marches and violence
purely desire to divert focus from their felonies,
failures and follies, others are hungry for votes
live wolves. Deadly, dirty, devious and egotistic,
they don’t care a whit about Africa or citizens.
Some of them are the have-beens, the spent
horses that seek elusive relevance and publicity.
They conveniently forget how other Africans
sacrificed for them during the apartheid era.
They prostitute their souls on the altar of ease,
power, cars, cash and populism. Soulless imps.
The schemers, suitors and capitalists are unsure
of their future decoy and dance with a free Africa.
Will the gig be possible when Africa engages with
them on her terms? Won’t that development finally
dismantle their hegemony and hold on to her wealth?
A united and wealthy Africa is like a free, riotous soul.
That’s why they have to keep on playing dynamic
but defrauding games. The same old playbook
is utilized, painted, reframed or updated to keep her –
the heavily milked and ravished rich cute cash cow—
at odds with herself or prone to their games.
If you play along or chase others away, you’re
playing into their hands, you’re a terrible traitor.
It’s either you are dancing as a dummy or you’re
simply delusional, of which, any attitude or state
is taken as an act of infidelity to the sacredness
of Africa, as a mother of humanity and civilization.
Africa is calling upon the short-sighted to see beyond
their borders and indoctrinations, the fast asleep to wake
up from their occupied psychological stupors and farcicalities,
the internally comatose to come to their senses, realities and life,
the lazy, lost and stranded to find their way home for their redemption.
Afrophobia cannot be loving or loyal to Africa.
It madly manifests in a conflicted, conflated
and rented sense of pride and patriotism,
and mistakes that frontage for self-love, self-
awareness, self-esteem and self-possession.
Yet it’s all an odd delusion and drama of folly.
It’s a psychological and historical imprisonment.
Afrophobia can be and is frequently weaponized
against the operative deliverance and humanization
of a victim and his or her history. Call to mind, Steve
Biko superbly professed: “The most potent weapon
in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”
