Monday 22 February 2016

Of the crystal ball, palm reading, astrology, voodoo, sorcery, witchcraft, weather man and being a Godly infant black man!


                     My heart pumps with excitement, for I am part of the world that treats me or sees me as a human being.  A world where the immediate infrastructure allows me to work hard, read hard, rewards me well and ensures I pursue what is known as shareable happiness. Now, I have to learn to live in this city. I have to be street-wise. I have to socially adjust and speak Spanish and English like they do.

                     I am mostly informed by a christian religion and a western worldview of an African's self actualization. I have been reduced to an un questioning-brainwashed black African who shoulda/coulda/woulda understand that anything African is devilish and evil. Everything Arabic, Judaistic, Indian and everything western is white and therefore Godly.  I am led to understand that my way to heaven is to follow anything Arabic, Jewish or white. I am a subject of a system that ridicules my black skin. I am supposed to remain that way and all who give me praise do so because am staying in line. Their line! Age wise, I am 20, 30, 40, 50... years old. But as a black/negro man, I am an ethno-cultural diaper-loined toddler.

                    As a black/negro man I am aware my ancestors believed in productivity; they lived in balance with nature (well, in a way as long as the lion and leopard did not eat their livestock; and had enough space left to dig  shallow pit stops); they engaged in negotiations and tolerance rituals (with a little bit of war here and there); they produced and provided foods and ensured nutrition for all; they lived in harmony with the cosmos; and respected death as a natural stage, a passage into after life. They shared this in conversation and work. They rather talked to a snake trance-wise as they chased it away than kill it. They took time to type poisonous spiders, lizards, frogs and snakes and had antidotes for such poisons. They knew which tree to use frequently and one to avoid (like the poison oaks).


                     I was walking by a long street with beautiful Victorian houses lining the asphalt streets. On one house was the sign "your palm reader at arm's length, 8am to 9pm, Tuesday to Friday only." Before I woke up this morning the weatherman (never mind even if it was a PBS's lady presenter of the weather forecast reading into the weather's future for the next 7 days) said it would be sunny in the morning but downcast later in the afternoon. The forecast looked at the rest of the week and it got me thinking and thanking. God's gift to humanity via intellect, ingenuity and tech advance. I wondered if the rainmaker would be equally accepted were I to tell about it to my friends here.


                  I wondered about the African diviners, soothsayers, voodoo man or voodoo woman. Where have they written and kept their knowledge? Yet, the public library I frequent has tomes and more tomes on skills of stargazing, reading the stars, crystal ball consultation, astrology and palm reading. Courses and seminars are dedicated to this. Voodoo? Nada! Voodoo is evil and devilish. Voodoo is black. I am told by those who have been in heaven that even there, the angels are white and devil is black! As long as I know that, live by that I am considered mature. But, as long as I question that then I am out of line. In that heaven, the lion and sheep will play with each other's paws. The lion will open wide its mouth and the sheep will count the number of the teeth in the mouth. But, the black devil and white God will not reconcile in that heaven!

                   I wish I had the same clarity to type the grass; the trees;  the birds; the worms; the butterflies that flutter and remember the trails in the woods as my black fore-ancestors. It is amazing that the crystal ball, palm reading, astrology and weather man are symbols of western world liberty and a pedigree culture but my yearning for an indigenous African black man's culture that has witchcraft, voodoo, sorcery and other objects get in the way of my becoming more Godly. I am still the draped-in-my-diapers ethno black man!

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