I have never struggled to separate the art from the artist, until now
Woman, you have disappointed me greatly
I am yet to get rid of Pink’s songs from my phone. It is a feature phone, so the process is a bit longer, and I am yet to get to it. I want to hold on a little longer. Yet every time her song comes in, I feel tired, annoyed, and exhausted. My smart phone is already cleaned up.
I have never struggled with this. Most artists that ended up doing things I found distasteful, were also ones I hardly cared for. Others I already disliked, so there was nothing new to see. But Pink has been different.
I hardly care for celebrities for the most part. Pink is the only person I have even considered attending their concert, from my own accord. I have been dragged to concerts here and there, which I didn’t really mind, but that I would not have gone to, if it was just me making the value decision. There is a time I would constantly tell people about how I would really love to go to their concert. My point is, I really liked her.
Earlier this year, I made a tiktok about her. “I am so glad she healed her trauma, because in healing herself, she has healed so many people,” I had said in the video. I was talking about the ripple effect of healing. She felt like a good example. You can see this easily when you look at her music over the years. She has also spoken about a lot of it publicly.
I loved that she was an activist too. I went through a period where I only cared to listen to music from activists. If your music is not political, what are we even doing here? Take your apolitical ass away from my vicinity. She stood up for the underdogs, at least she appeared to do so. So this last debacle disappointed me greatly. Wah! Hata sikuamini.
I am not going to try to see the world from her view, it is pointless to me, and insulting too. She is still siding with the oppressor; that will remain unchanged. Or try to see how she got here. All that is irrelevant. The boot is still on the neck of the oppressed. It is not about her!
I think a lot about how people who have been victims in the past, go ahead to be oppressors themselves. It is hardly ever to the people who abused them. They look for new innocent vessels to feel their wrath. The ones they deem lesser. Sure, you have been sold propaganda since you were a baby about a made up enemy. We all have been. We also chose to grow up and look at the truth. Your insistence on keeping the curtains, does not make you our problem.
Maybe I have had more times that I have struggled separating the art and the artist. The theme is always the same. Since I learnt the truth about israel, I have struggled with most content that talks about jews and israel. Most of your favourite shows do. Even my current classic, The Big Bang Theory. But I find it easier to tune it out here, because those reminders are far apart. Plus I came for sheldon’s neurodivergence, anyway. My goal is clear here, feeling seen.
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I stopped listening to how i made your mother, the podcast, when they were talking about time travel, and the one thing they said they would change in the past, was the holocaust. Come on! You live in a country with slave history, it wasn’t even that long ago. It did not occur to you to add that to the list, if not at the top? I was shocked. A reminder that white people will never see me. I will not blame it on education here. Grow up and face the real world, you are no longer children. You can do your research now.
The holocaust is advertised greatly, because the victims were white. But that wasn’t the worst thing the germans did to humans. Namibia tops that list. But it is never spoken about. The victims were not white. There is a reason they like to paint africa in the way that they do. How to write about Africa — Binyavanga Wainaina. A jungle with hardly any people. When the people are shown, the focus is on their poverty, more ways to dehumanize the people. A vast jungle is also easy to invade, it is not like you were stealing from anyone.
The colonizer world likes to emphasize on which victims are worth caring for. Africans are usually at the bottom of that list. They exploit it and run it to the ground, then they turn around and call africa poor. Honey, africa powers y’all. What you seem to be bragging about is all stolen. But you would not want to look at that, would you? It would force you to look at your own participation. Suddenly, you are an oppressor yourself. So then you do a uno reverse. It is the african people, and its leaders, that let it happen. Don’t get me wrong, I have zero respect for those pawns in ‘leadership’ positions, they are big insecure fools. But we have also seen what happens to african leaders who had a backbone. Read about it, sitawafunza kila kitu.
You also like to blame its people. Don’t worry about us, we are awake now. We were asleep for decades, sadly, but now the spell is broken. We had to be. We were tortured into it. Oh yeah, another thing that your education failed to teach you. The british made sure it burnt everything when it was leaving the ‘colony’. Foolish country. They thought we were as limited as they were, restricting themselves to only text knowledge, the same way they had colonized themselves first. Then the governments that came, their assigned projects, maintained the same foolishness. We learnt about colonization from the colonizer and home guards lens. Of course they sanitized it. There were books listing the advantages of colonization. Submitting is what kept the population going. But you do some thing long enough, eventually you forget why you started. This is how we got here. It also explains the spell of christianity and islam. People like to forget arab colonization, they matter too. You are welcome.
The jews are the only ones who were ever compensated for their oppression. They were the only ones worthy of reparations. I have a world tour I could easily point to, if we are listing all the places that need the same. Oh, the wrath that should fall on europe! Then race introduces tiers to it. I give very few fucks about the suffering of ukranians. Let white people fight their own stupid battles. They left africans to suffer while escaping on the first days of the ‘war’. Remember children, war still cares about the colour of your skin. The news also told this story clearly. “They look like us!” the white people suddenly cared about war. The victims were worthy humans now.
Black people and africans are constantly told to forget about slavery; that we should move on already. How come the jews never seem to move on? Makachieth!
It is also very clear to me, that the war on palestine, is still riddled with a lot of conflict in me. Palestine is the most popular one, but more are happening. Those are on black people, even easier to ignore. Congo, Haiti, Sudan, Tigray… The arabs have also been, and still are, our colonizers. So then, I know for sure, that this same people I am fighting for, are also the same skin colour as my oppressors. Indians easily came here and participated in our oppression, after being victims themselves. At least they were not at the bottom here, no?
A slaves biggest dream is not freedom, but to acquire another slave. That is the insanity of patriarchy; its stupid foolish hierarchies. So let me go home, I have words for y’all. While all that oppresses me, I can still say that I am not in it alone, neh? But like I said earlier, there is tiers. An african man, after being a slave himself, dreams about their own slave, a woman. In the form of a wife, sister, mother, lover, or pretty much anyone that presents female. Men have been taught that women, even strange women, will cater to their constant tantrums, insecurities, and need for attention. That women were made to serve them; oh and pacify and absolve them of the responsibility of their own actions. And then the women were groomed to do exactly that. This is why they take and take, because they were taught it was theirs to take. Women are not humans to them, after all. They are mostly breeders and servants.
But you thought african women are at the bottom, right? There is class too. Oh, there is intersex and trans people, gay people, disabled people, and the most abused class, children. There are those who get almost all, or all, if it were a bingo game. The same people who know oppression intimately, suddenly have no problem abusing others. This time round, they are not the slowest, so they might as well leave the lion to eat the slower one. Oh, they become the lion, too. The spotlight is no longer on them, it is important to capitalize on the little highs granted to you in the colonialism prison. Even when you use it to inflict familiar pain to others. A high is a high.
So pardon me for not giving a fuck about white millionaires who should have known better. I haven’t even bothered to sign the change.org link about removing her as a unicef ambassador. That would require me to validate the ‘un’ as an entity. Fuck that organization! I will not speak on them today, but if you really wanted to know them, you can do your own research. It is all out there. This time round, watch it from the lens of the oppressed, not the oppressor.
I am looking forward to getting rid of the music. It is not like I have been listening to it. I am looking forward to saying goodbye to it. It would not be the first thing I have buried something to nothingness. (23–9)
I am glad I performed a funeral. Thank you for coming to the funeral.
