Preparing for 2023

It's the end of 2022 and we are entering into 2023. Every January people make new years resolutions in relation to the goals they wish to accomplish by the end of the year, however, the majority of people will fail to achieve it. An example is the typical goal of wanting to lose weight where many people sign up to the gym. I have been an avid gym goer for almost a decade. Every January when I go to the gym it is very packed, but by February the gym is back to its usual capacity. I don't knock resolutions but personally, I believe in bettering myself on a continuous basis in all areas of my life. I am going to share my thoughts on how to level up for 2023.

Mentally

In order to improve yourself on a mental level it is important  to surround yourself with the right people. You need people around you who can give you good advice, push you in the right direction and support your goals and dreams. They say you are a reflection of the 5 closest people to you. If you are around people who try to bring you down, or speak fear into you cut them off (or at least distance yourself). If you can, stay away from toxic environments.

Also be mindful of the information and content you consume. What shows do you watch? what music do you listen to? If you consume negative content it will make you think negatively. Try to consume positive and educational content. Read books, watch documentaries, listen to podcasts that have substance, do online courses.

I would suggest making a Vision Board so that everyday you can physically see the goals you want to achieve. Positive affirmations are a great way to affirm your goals. Anytime you say these affirmations out loud you are putting out into the world the things you want to accomplish. 

Physically 

Do you take care of your body? Your health is extremely important, a number of health issues are due to having a bad diet and lifestyle. Look after your body, exercise on a regular basis, if you can afford to I would recommend  going to a gym. If not, you can do workouts at home, there are numerous fitness channels on YouTube you can watch and follow. Diet is also important, you are literally what you eat. If you are a busy person I would recommend meal prepping. When I do grocery shopping I purposely do not buy unhealthy snacks (chocolate, sweets etc) because I know I will eat it non stop at home, so instead I buy fruits to snack on.  I rarely eat junk food and I try not to eat out a lot as most of the food in restaurants & takeaways are high in sugar and salt.  Over time you can be disciplined regarding what you eat.

The next thing I would recommend, especially for my ladies is self-care,. I like to get facials, massages, nails done, eyebrows done etc. My mum raised me to always look presentable and to take care of myself plus it makes me feel good.

Spiritually 

I know people have different beliefs. If you believe in God I would suggest prayer, pray on a regular basis to keep that connection to God. I would also recommend reading your holy book, so if you are Christian read the bible to give you more knowledge on the word of God. I also like listening to gospel music. For those that aren't christian, meditation music is also good.

I find that being in nature helps my spirit. It helps me feel connected to the source. Journalling is also good where you write down your thoughts and emotions. Spiritually you want to be at peace, if your spirit is not at peace then there is bad energy disturbing your spirit.

In life strive for progress over perfection, we are not meant to be perfect. We are all a work in progress. Focus on your life and your journey which is unique to you. Live your life to the fullest as we only have one of it and don't know when it will end.  

I hope you have a happy and prosperous new year and here are some life lessons I want to share with you all:

• Know your worth and ALWAYS have standards and boundaries, if you don’t people will take advantage of you 

• Take advice from people who have already achieved what you want to. E.g if you want to buy a property speak to property owners

• Don’t associate with low standard people who will discourage you from wanting better for yourself or from achieving your goals 

• Your actions should be in alignment with your goals e.g if you want to be healthier, eat better & exercise 

• Learn to take constructive criticism and don’t get upset by it.

• Take accountability for your choices/actions. Don’t dwell on past mistakes, learn from it then do better. 

• Always upskill yourself because the world is advancing at such a fast pace. Google and YouTube university is free

• Take your health VERY seriously, it can be taken from you in a second 

• Try therapy. Have a support system. Never suffer in silence.

• If you were raised to have strong faith/morals never feel pressured into subscribing to the degenerate ideologies of this world. 

The Woman King

I recently watched the film “The Woman King”. When I first saw the trailer a couple of months ago I was super excited, a film about African history which does not focus on black victimisation. I decided a few years ago to no longer watch black history films which focus on the pain and suffering of black people, this includes slavery films and films about racism. I'm tired of the narrative of black people being victims, when we literally have a whole history which does not involve us suffering at the hands of white people. 

Before the film came out  I noticed that there was controversy surrounding the film. I saw people complain about the film's title and said it should have been called “Queen” instead as the title is masculinising a black woman. In many African languages, including my own, there is no word for “Queen”, the literal equivalent word when translated into English would be “woman king”. I believe that is why this film has that title. A further criticism is that the film portrays dark skin Black woman as masculine as a lot of Hollywood films generally do. Black women are very nuanced and are not monolithic. This film is about female warriors so of course they will be masculine. The Kings wives in this film were feminine and lived a very soft life.

Another criticism I saw is that the film glorifies the Dahomey who were slave traders (this is why some people boycotted this film). Prior to this film I was aware of the Dahomey tribe and their female military. The Dahomey tribe were  heavily involved in the slave trade as they generated a lot of wealth from it. They were brutal and would engage in human sacrifice.  The film does show their involvement in the trade, but the leader of the Agojie Nanisca seemed to be against the slave trade. In the end they are made to be the heroes as they free captives. People need to realise that this is a Hollywood film which purpose is to entertain an audience. Though the film is based on true events, such as King Gezo who did exist, the Dahomey war with the Oyo tribe which actually happened and the Dahomey wanting to trade palm wine with the Portuguese, it is not a documentary so we cannot expect it to be historically accurate. Some things in the film would have definitely been made up and dramatised for entertainment purposes. 

I liked the journey of Nawi, a young woman who refuses to get married off to an old abusive rich man, so her father gives her to the king.  She joins the Kings Guard and trains to become an Agojie warrior. She is stubborn, funny and speaks her mind. She also questions Dahomey traditions, such as why Agojie women can never marry and have families of their own but male warriors can. We watch her grow as a person and become a strong warrior.

Nanisca is the the general of the Agojie. She is strong and fierce. We do get to see her vulnerable side as she was a victim of rape. It is later revealed that she is Nawi's mother, when Nawi is captured by the Oyo to be sold into slavery. Nanisca goes against the King's order to go and save her daughter.

One of the key characters in the film is Malik, the son of a Dahomey slave and a white Brazilian Portuguese father. When Portuguese/Spanish slave owners had a child with a female slave, the child would take on the heritage of their father who would raise them, they would not become a slave. Malik accompanies his childhood friend who is a slave trader to Dahomey in order to see his mothers roots. He is immediately uncomfortable when he sees the slave square. During the film he falls for Nawi,  and does what he can to protect her. He is torn because he is loyal to his Portugeuse friend but his heart is loyal to his Dahomey people. In the end he chooses the Dahomey people over his childhood friend. His character shows the complexities of being biracial, e.g. struggling with identity, never fully fitting in, being forced to pick a side, being caught in the middle.

The film was amazing, I enjoyed every minute of it. I enjoyed seeing the Dahomey culture and practices, the perfectly executed war scenes, the strength and power of the Africans, especially at the end when they fought against the European slavers/colonisers and won.  This is a narrative which is not shown in Hollywood films. I believe this film will make people do their own research into the Kingdom of Dahomey and to learn black history for themselves. I'm glad a film like this was made, I hope that more films about black history (not black victimisation) are made in future.

Anti-Blackness amongst Black men

This post is about black men. It pains me that many of our black brothers have a deep hatred for each other and continue to kill each other, especially the young generation. We are all aware of the knife crime issue within the black community in the UK. There is also the gun crime issue in the USA. I do not believe in the term "black on black crime" because when white people commit crimes against  other white people it is not called "white on white crime", it's just crime. Further, crime is about proximity, you are more likely to be a victim of a crime of someone in your proximity. However, the rate that black men kill each other is higher than that of white men that kill each other. There is a real issue within these black communtities.

I remember watching one of Nipsey Hussle's interviews and he spoke about how gang members find an "opp" to kill. They will go to a rival gangs neighbourhood, if they see a man in a suit they will ignore him, if they see a white man they will ignore him. But if they see a black man who dresses the way they do, has the same kind of demeanour they have then that's the person they will attack. Nipsey then mentions the next point which I thought was really deep. He said by doing this, you are killing someone who is a reflection of you in a different neighbourhood, you are basically killing yourself. This is a deep level of self hatred.

The fact that as a black male you can see a fellow black brother you don't know, who looks just like you, but have so much hatred towards him that you wish to cause him harm, is very sad. The question I have is why are there black men like this? where does this mindset stem from? Some people say it's due to white supremacy, poverty, broken homes, drugs, music, culture. Personally, I don't believe in this modern age that white supremacy is the reason black men kill other black men, there needs to be a level of accountability.  I'm sure most people know that murder is wrong. Poverty may be a possible contributing factor however in "third world" countries, where there is extreme poverty, people do not murder each other at a high rate. I do think culture plays a big role, within black western communities there is a sub-culture which embraces degenerate behaviours such as criminality, gun crime, gang life, broken homes, and hyper-consumerism. These behaviours are also glorified through music (usually rap/drill). "Catching bodies" is cool, having multiple "baby mamas" is cool, going to jail is cool. Due to living in a very consumer based society, jealousy and envy is real, people want what others have and will kill in order to obtain it. These are the detrimental behaviours that are destroying our communities. There is complete disregard for human life. Black conservatives tend to call out these behaviours, but are  often called coons as a result. I remember hearing UK rapper Akala saying that if a white person wrote the lyrics that you see in some rap songs it will sound like they are KKK members, which is true.

Being a rapper is dangerous, over the years we have seen multiple rappers murdered. The most recent was Takeoff from the Migos, he was reserved and unproblematic. He was apparently killed by a stray bullet after a game of dice. PNB Rock was killed a couple of months ago. I had never heard of him until he died, I checked out his music and his content does not promote negativity. Let's not forget Nipsey Hussle, a man who tried to educate and uplift his community. In the UK, there have been drill rappers that have been murdered. I don't see any other genre of music where people are killed at this rate. When you kill somebody, it is just not just the victim who suffers. It is their family, their friends and  their wider community. When a white person kills a black person, black people will galvanise together, we'll protest, we'll see BLM. When a black person kill another black person it is crickets. If all Black lives matter then action needs to be taken when a black person is killed regardless of the race of the murderer. 

So what is the solution? I personally believe that it starts with having stronger family units and communities. We need strong black men in the homes to guide, teach and discipline their sons. It takes a village to raise a child, when a child starts to misbehave there needs to be someone who corrects them and nips their behaviour in the bud before it gets out of hand. I believe we also need to go back to God, (regardless of your faith) and in-still morals in people. We need to have self-love and see ourselves as the powerful entities that we are, we need to know our history and identity. It is also important that we know how to resolve conflicts without resorting to violence, and to hold each other accountable. I wish that negative black music would be banned, but it won't happen as it makes a lot of money for the record labels (which Kanye rightly called out in his drink champs interview). R.I.P to those black men who have lost their lives at the hands of other black men.

White lives Matter?

When I first saw this image on social media, I believed that Candace Owens and Kanye West were trolling and did it for attention and marketing purposes.  I did not get upset when I saw the image but I did wonder to myself how they were going to justify this stunt. Their plan worked as everyone was talking about it on social media and the pair received major backlash. Black outrage is a marketing tool used by some organisations, who purposefully do something racist that will anger black people in order to get a reaction. At the end of the day bad publicity is still publicity. 

Kanye West is no stranger to controversy, he is the same guy that goes on rants and has previously said “slavery was a choice”. Candace Owens is no stranger to controversy either, she will speak her mind regardless of what other people think of her. Kanye and Candace are married to white people and have half white children, so of course White Lives Matter to them. Do I agree that white lives matter? Of course. Every human life matters. I do understand in this social context that “White Lives Matter’ is perceived as an attack on the “Black Lives Matter” movement which is about racial injustice and Police brutality against black people.  Hence, why I do think what they did was racially insensitive considering that in America, white lives have always mattered.

Kanye's justification for his actions is that Black Lives Matter is a scam. It was previously reported that the founder of BLM used $6m of donations to buy a mansion in an expensive predominately white area.  From the information I have seen about the organisation, I do believe it was a scam and they used the death of black people for profit. Family members of Breonna Taylor and Tamir Rice had stated that they received no help from BLM despite the faces of their dead loved ones being used by the organisation. However,  I do agree with the statement itself 'Black Lives Matter' because they do, and I did attend the George Floyd BLM protest in London in 2020 which was mainly peaceful.

Kanye West has said in an instagram post that his "T-shirt took all the attention". This is exactly what he wanted. It was Paris Fashion week and he was doing a show for his Yeezy brand. I don't think anyone can fully understand the mind of Kanye West. We are used to Kanye having outbursts and saying or doing things that don't make sense to the average person. I believe that the death of his mother, Donda is what caused his mental health issues and he has never been the same since.

I am a fan of Candace Owens and I do agree with a lot of things she says and she has opened my eyes to black conservatism. At the same time there are some things she says that I do wholeheartedly disagree with. She recently done a podcast called “White Lives Matter”, I watched it on YouTube to see her justification as to why her and Kanye wore the WLM  T-Shirt. In this Podcast episode she highlighted the hypocrisy of "Black Lives Matter" within the Black American community. She started off by discussing the high abortion rate within the  black American community and how in New York more black babies were aborted than were born. She also talked about black criminality and that black men make up about 7% of the American population but 40% of all homicides. Further, black people kill other black people at exponentially high rates and there is no outrage at all  about that and instead it is glorified in music. She highlighted that in 2020  there were only about 9 black people killed by Police. If these figures are accurate, she has a point as abortions and black on black murders are bigger killers in the black communities which  people don't seem as bothered about. Others will argue that when black men commit murder they are dealt with by the Law whereas police officers are more likely to get away with killing black victims, which is also true. Candace also raised that obesity is the number 1 killer in America and that black women have the highest rate of obesity than any other group at 56.9%. She also talked about father absence and the education system.

After watching her video I agree with what she had said. These are issues in the black American community that needs to be addressed and dealt with if people genuinely do care about black lives. Candace has alway spoken out against the negative side of black American culture, and holds black people accountable. There are a lot of black people that dislike her, but if you listen to her carefully a lot of what she says makes sense as she comes from a place of looking at facts and statistics as oppose to talking out of emotion. I personally believe that, if black lives matter then ALL black lives should matter, not just when a white Police officer kills a black person. 

The Hustle Culture

 "Hustle, hustle, hustle, hard" this is the chorus from Ace Hood's tune "Hustle hard". This will set the tone of this blog post. In western society there is a toxic hustle culture which I have noticed emerge over the last few years where they push the notion that people need to be working 24/7. There are people who shame 9-5ers and push the narrative that they must  have multiple side-hustles on top of their job. There are motivational speakers who have negatively contributed to this culture. A phrase I have heard is "I'll sleep when I'm dead" or something along the lines of "while you are all sleeping I am up working" or "I'm always grinding".  I understand that it is very important to have a strong work ethic, especially if you are trying to achieve particular goals. However, I do not believe you have to be working crazy hours to the detriment of your own health.

I have unfortunately done this. All my life I was taught to work hard so that I can be successful, and that is exactly what I did. I worked hard wherever I was employed despite being underpaid for the level of work I was doing. I've worked very long hours consistently and all it did was burn me out and make me depressed. Many of us will work the hell out of ourselves for a company that can easily replace us. Work-life balance is important, just working without the balance is not good for us as we are not machines and our bodies need rest!.

I used to believe in this hustle culture, to the extent that if I had a day off and I didn't do anything productive that day I would feel guilty. I would question myself as to why I didn't read a book, exercise, or do research etc. I would feel as though I had wasted time that I could not get back.  This was a toxic mindset I had. Having an unproductive day is needed where you take a break from life. There is nothing wrong in having a day where you stay in bed all day, or binge watch a Netflix series while eating junk food, or watch TV all day. These are rest days which are necessary, our bodies need rest to recuperate. Now I do not feel bad for having a  lazy day, I know I've worked hard and been productive during the week so I deserve a rest day. There is nothing wrong with prioritizing yourself.  You are not supposed to be productive 24/7, even God rested on the 7th day.

I remember speaking to a nurse who worked in a hospice with terminally ill patients. She had told me that many of the patients  used to say they wished they had spent more time with their families and loved ones. No one had ever said they wished they worked more while on their death bed. When someone dies you realise what's actually important in life e.g. family, friends, happiness, love, peace etc.

In the West there is this very fast-paced culture and always being on the go. This creates stress which can have a negative impact on your mental and physical health. I see this a lot especially living in London. No wonder Londoners always look depressed when you see them on the trains going to work in the morning. When I last visited Ghana it was a much more slow paced environment. I noticed that people in Ghana seemed less stressed compared to those in London despite having a lower standard of living. I feel that in this type of slow paced environment people actually value and enjoy their life more and do what makes them happy. When I'm in London I feel more stressed and anxious but when I'm in Ghana I feel more at peace. I've noticed people from other parts of Africa, the Caribbean and Asia who have said the same thing about when they travel back to their home countries. 

I remember a time when I used to hear about rich men in developed countries committing suicide. I never understood this at the time because they literally had everything money could buy.  I realised as I got older that they are missing the important things in their life. If there is no love, peace, good relationships/support in your life no amount of  money will fill these voids. This is why you can go to a rural village in a developing country and see poor children playing in dirt and they are very happy .  The western world has a culture which focuses on the accumulation of wealth, consumerism and materialism as the key happiness.  Don't get me wrong, it's nice to be able to have things, but that is not the be all and end all. We need to also value the important things in life. The pandemic forced people (especially in the west) to slow down their busy lifestyles, be still and to have time to think about what is actually important in their lives.

I am not against making money, working hard and hustling. I believe there needs to be a balance. Work hard, rest, spend time with loved ones and do things you actually enjoy. To me that is the key to having a fulfilled life.