You ever look at the world around you and ask “why is ____ like this”? I find myself doing this more often these days and usually it fuels a sarcastic thought or idea for a song, sometimes an idea for a blog post. I ask why mostly because my brain processes things in a cause-and-effect sort of way. I see certain things and try to imagine the gains or losses for the parties involved and based on that, I get a feel for the motivation. A little bit of this, some of that…Something something, then I come up with how I feel about the situation. Sounds like a long process, but it truly depends on what I’m stewing on at the time. It usually takes less time to weigh these ideas than it took me to write this paragraph. OK, I’m sure the next few weeks will have varying degrees of relatability, but for now, I’ll get into what I’ve been stewing on the last 2 days.
I enjoy a good political article from time to time, but the number 1 thing as of the day I’m writing this is Trump’s 4th indictment, RICO charges, and what that means for his chances in 2024. Seeing as I didn’t feel like giving that my energy, I went to the world news tab on CNN. The main thing being highlighted in the top 2 or 3 articles were about Ukraine making war advancements against Russia…another top that didn’t deserve my energy. So, I scrolled down to the topics CNN clearly cared the least about; in this small font the article said, “Thousands of bodies left to decompose in Khartoum”. Naturally, that was the winner for my attention and should be something more people care about. But no. And that is just one of the layers for this post.
Real Talk
Though it may seem callous of me, I don’t really care about what’s going on in Ukraine. Not because I don’t care about the Ukrainian people, but they have A LOT of support already, and it seems the globe is giving them more than enough to combat their enemy. The U.S. is spending a lot of money on this conflict and the strategic gain is weakening Russia. However, the economical side of this says we could be doing better things with that money. At least that’s how I feel about the matter. Logically I fully understand why they’re throwing money and weapons at Ukraine, and though I disagree for many reasons, the powers that be don’t care what any of us normal tax paying citizens agree or disagree with?
Meanwhile
Thousands of bodies are decomposing in the streets of Khartoum is great for dramatic effect…the report says 1100, which is still a lot, but wouldn’t qualify for thousands. That aside, if we’re being honest with ourselves, 500 is too many let alone doubling that figure. If 100 bodies were decomposing in the streets of Marseilles, France it would be major news regardless of why they’re there. However, our society and news outlets have conditioned us to not care about Africa, or any of the people of the African diaspora. It’s not just the United States either, the same sentiment is shared throughout Europe, and I just find that to be disgusting. So, if you were unaware, there’s a civil war going on in Sudan which is why these bodies are piling up. However, they aren’t dying from African made weaponry, they’re dying by way of AK-47’s, handguns manufactured by a bit of everyone, and AR-15’s made right here. The U.S. pledged $245M to aide Sudan and as of me writing, they’ve already spent $75B and counting for Ukraine.
Africa is our center of gravity, our cultural and spiritual mother and father, our beating heart, no matter where we live on the face of this earth
John Henrik Clarke
Discard Until Needed
My curiosity always brings me to “why” when I see these sorts of contradictions. Not that I am surprised at all, this has literally been going on for centuries now. When Africa was colonized and ultimately exploited by many of the European powers, those colonizers destroyed Africa. They took the resources, created imaginary boundaries not consistent with tradition, treated the people as less than human, turned many of them against each other. Just when the violence they created got a bit too hard to deal with, they left, but not after ensuring they could still rape the continent at their leisure. Of the top 10 diamond mining companies in Africa, with a combined value of $571B, only the 6th largest is run by an African Government, and another has 50% ownership shared with De Beers. I’ve never been a fan of jewelry but knowing the human cost of bling makes diamonds ugly to me. Worse though, the world knows the human cost too, yet they still feed into it. The same is being done with the natural resources used to make EV’s. Cobalt and Manganese are abundant in Africa and you can rest assured the practices of extracting it aren’t what you’d want your children or family members to endure.
Why is it so easy to dismiss such a large group of people, the literal cradle of our civilization as subhuman or not worthy of common decency? There has been a push to gloss over the accomplishments of Africans in the various fields. There is always a push to eliminate Africans from Egypt, despite all of the evidence people run with the narrative that they were exclusively Arab, when that just isn’t the case. One of the reasons Ghandi became the figure he was early on was his hatred for South Africans. He used the racial slurs to describe them and his primary objective was that Indians should be considered higher on the caste system than Africans. Who knows if he ever changed his heart, but I would say I don’t care if he did or not, he can still kiss my…let me stay on topic here. All that to say the disrespect comes from everywhere and there is no good reason that I can see for it. The continent of Africa has long been the place to rape and mistreat, and this is ridiculous coming from so called sophisticated, civilized countries.
The Disrespect is Insane
When the flight disappeared from Indonesia, it was the number 1 headline on most news outlets for weeks, and a minor headline for months…and that was a singular event with less than 400 casualties. Over 1000 men, women, and children have been killed with at least 10,000 injured since their civil war kicked off a few months ago, and it’s not even worthy of a serious mention? What we are seeing take place is equivalent to clogging someone else’s toilet up at a party. It’s all fun and games when you’re eating and drinking, having a good time at their expense. Then you shit in their toilet, clog it, and then leave because it’s not your problem. It’s our party when all is well and their house when the shit gets thick. Europe, The United States, Russia, and China are taking massive shits in Africa and leaving it for the people to deal with, because it’s their house. My belief is that it is their house, and since the uninvited guests don’t want to clean up their shit, they should leave…but leave the natural resources, diamonds, oil and everything else to the rightful owners of that house and deal with them as equals, and not as subjects.