De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté

Photo

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 02:11:32 +0100

Photo

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 01:50:00 +0100

cynicalapathy replied to your photo it is insane how beautiful you are OMG *blushes all the...

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 14:46:25 +0100

cynicalapathy replied to your photo

it is insane how beautiful you are

OMG *blushes all the blushes* :-)

praisethelorde replied to your photo I love your eyes! thanks =)

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 14:13:32 +0100

praisethelorde replied to your photo

I love your eyes!

thanks =)

nezua replied to your photo Beauty. Thank you Nezua

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 14:05:32 +0100

nezua replied to your photo

Beauty.

Thank you Nezua

Photo

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 13:52:37 +0100

"The spectacle does not realize philosophy, it philosophizes reality, reducing everyone’s concrete..."

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 08:29:37 +0100

“The spectacle does not realize philosophy, it philosophizes reality, reducing everyone’s concrete life to a universe of speculation.”

- Guy Debord - The society of spectacle

Pieces of me 2

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 08:17:11 +0100

My being has been trained
for so long to break itself into little
pieces to fit alienating narratives that
i cannot separate being from alienation
i cannot separate being from pain
i cannot separate being from
renouncing to bits of myself
i cannot separate being from being
swallowed, wrecked and tormented by
the emptiness that ultimately comes as a result
i cannot separate being from drowning
in a chaos of delusions
i cannot separate being from grieving the
loss of my authentic self

Paralysis

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 07:38:17 +0100

I am the essence of chaos

And every move is a deep and painful tear

Photo

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 23:33:05 +0100

“Tomorrow” by Salif Keita This song is about the...

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 22:31:21 +0100

“Tomorrow” by Salif Keita

This song is about the inevitability of death. Here “tomorrow” means after this life . “Sadio” is the name of somebody who died. Nobody died and came back. Death is inevitable. Sadio, see you tomorrow (after this life). You are everyone’s darling. Ousmane is at a loss since you left for your final journey. All the people of Mali are lost without you. Death is final. Fatoumata and Ba-Oumou are saying how much you mean to them. Sitting or standing, everyone is lamenting your absence. You did such a great work Sadio. Everybody remembers you still. You still live in the hearts of people. Tomorrow, Sadio, see you tomorrow. [x]

Original lyrics—————————————————————————————
tomorrow, only tomorrow, sadio ambe tomorrow x 2

sadio jon te i fe, Ousmane ko, ka bi fe,
ka bi fe, koniete ka le te sigi

sadio jon te i fe, malienw ko,
u bi fe ko, u bi fe, ko ni e te ko ulu te sigi,
mogo ma taa folo kanaa, saya ma son nene ma,
an sayakera nene balidi

tomorrow, only tomorrow, sadio ambe tomorrow x 2

sadio jon te i fe, Fatoumata ko, ka bi fe,
ka bi fe, kono ete ka le te sigi

sadio jon te i fe, Ba-Oumou ko, ka bi fe,
ka bi fe, ko ni ete ka le te sigi

mogomataa folo kanaa, say mason nenema,
an mogo mataa folo kanaa, saya mason nenema,
an saya kera nenebali

tomorrow see you tomorrow, sadio see you tomorrow
tomorrow only tomorrow, sadio ambe tomorrow

English Translation——————————————————————————

I will not feel this way anymore.
I will not remember this feeling.
I will remember the emotion.
I will remember the moment.
It will be a memory.
A recollection, a description.
It will be tainted and impure.
Coloured by mission, by vision, by recollection.

Today…
I cannot capture it. Not even just yet.
I have been blemished. In thought, emotion, mission.
My stomache knots and sinks.
Somersaults in rebellion.
The body will fight the mind.
The heart estranged, must mediate…
Teased and Torn
Unable to do justice.
Eyes mist over. Tears well in the lower lid and spill over.
Brook to stream to river. Outpour, overflow.
Taste them.
Savour the release of Nothing and Something.

Photo

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 21:21:14 +0100

jhameia: mercy-misrule: pretzuls: Bonjour Gazel: 220. (My...

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 21:12:55 +0100

jhameia:

mercy-misrule:

pretzuls:

Bonjour Gazel: 220. (My favourite looks from 2011)

Ok, because Tumblr won’t let me attach 12, I’ll attach 10. You’ll have to see the remaining ones on my blog!

Adorable person, adorable outfits!

Seriously though, I always want new clothes and this post just makes me want them morrrrre

*jaw hangs* Stylin’!

ppppeeerrrffeeecccctttt

Especially these ones: My faves :3

"[TW: Torture, Racism] The Reuters report says that the city is under siege because it still harbors..."

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 20:53:51 +0100

“[TW: Torture, Racism] The Reuters report says that the city is under siege because it still harbors pockets of pro-Gaddafi elements. But as usual this is a distortion and ignores firstly the fact that the tribe of Bani Walid, the Werfalla, which is also Libya’s largest tribe, has always been united ideologically as they were and remain throughout this ongoing crisis. Their position has unwaveringly been to resist the NATO-rebel insurgency, and had it not been for the unity of the Werfalla, then the militias would never be able to enter Bani Walid without heavy bombardment.”

- Lizzie Phelan, Libyan City Under Siege by Militias via Black Agenda Report

The same militia that erased the Black town ofTawergha and has terrorized dark-skinned Libyans and African immigrants, is threatening to attack the city of Bani Walid, which has been under artillery siege and encirclement for over a week. The NATO-backed militias claim to be targeting “pro-Gaddafi” elements.

(via jayaprada)

There is so much I would like to say but I do not even know where to start. But I would simply say in a nutshell that the Arab Spring highlighted for me how extremely dangerous and devastating Arab imperialism was for Black Africans and for this reason, I will never again support any Arab movement of liberation! NEVER AGAIN - unless they openly and actively fight anti-blackness, otherwise, they will only strive off it. This is the reason why I do not support white movement of resistance like OWS, because they do not challenge the racism at their core, so if successful, will only lead to the creation of another racist society.

It is extremely difficult to explain Arab anti-blackness with western-centric notions of race because a lot of it has to do with colorism and anti-blackness also manifest itself through the oppression of native, indigenous African peoples. One can be Arab and black. There is no such hard rule like the one drop rule in the US that defines blackness clearly in the Arab world. But unlike in the US, the Arab slave trade of black Africans has NEVER STOPPED, outlawed or not!!! It is still widely practiced all over the middle East and in some parts of North Africa. I am posting this, Ethiopia woman lived modern day slavery at hands of Dubai couple, which happened just few days ago and this, Saudi prince beat his black sex slave to death, as a reminder that we black people are still seen as less than human and slaves in the Arab world.

The Egyptian revolution started off with reports of massacres of Somali migrants, the Lybian revolution culminated with the mass murder and genocide of 30,000 Tawergha people, wiped out with the support of the west and I frequently see casual anti-blackness on this website with pro-Palestine partisans who have no scruples exploiting the plight of black people in Israel, as simple rhetoric device to further their anti-Israel agenda. Yet none of them will ever address the lingering anti-blackness in Palestine or the rest of the Arab world. So, as a black African, simply by self-preservation, I can not get down with this kind of savagery.

All of this just proves two things to me. First of all, the world do NOT give a flying fuck about the lives of Black African people, I already knew this. And when I say the world, I am not only talking about white people, I am talking about the whole fucking planet, POC included. This leads me to my second point, POC solidarity is the phoniest shit ever!! THERE IS NO SUCH A THING! And I see it as even dangerous because I know that many do not expose and address Arab imperialism because of it. Because Arab people are victims of white supremacy, they somehow get a pass for the supremacist system they have imposed on black and indigenous Africans. Being unchallenged, it can only strive!! THEY ARE STILL ENSLAVING US GODDAMNIT!! IN 2012!! I cannot denounce the barbaric anti-blackness of white supremacy and not address Arab imperialism. Especially since as a black person, I will always be a million times safer in the west than I will ever be in any Arab country!!

shegufta: inspirement: erosum: lonelyvagabond: apofis: The...

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 13:16:07 +0100

shegufta:

inspirement:

erosum:

lonelyvagabond:

apofis:

The Baader Meinhof Complex

(via adailyriot)

This was a really good movie

nappyedges replied to your post: nappyedges replied to your post: So I was watching… I don’t...

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 11:14:37 +0100

nappyedges replied to your post: nappyedges replied to your post: So I was watching…

I don’t think we can escape capitalism either. I think it’ll run itself into the ground in 1000+ years like the Roman Empire did. We can only dismantle parts of it.

I see what you mean. I was thinking the same but meanwhile the exploitation will keep on :/

Everyone loves to talk shit about social justice bloggers

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 11:05:00 +0100

jaraconnell:

as if it’s a really hip, new, revolutionary idea to defend racism, cultural appropriation, sexism, etc.. Guess what, jackasses - there have always been people that want to perpetuate systems of oppression by mocking those who fight against them. History paints an ugly portrait of those who stand in the way of progress.

Social INjustice bloggers are just as worthless as leeches. They feed off demeaning those who stand up for themselves. They are like the losers who would try to get on bullies’ good side by turning on the bullied. Worthless I am telling you!

nappyedges replied to your post: So I was watching an interview of Steve Stoute and… The...

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 11:00:00 +0100

nappyedges replied to your post: So I was watching an interview of Steve Stoute and…

The problem is that capitalism is built on whiteness. So 99% of the time if you want to be a millionaire/billionaire in a consumer based industry you have to cater to whiteness otherwise you won’t make as much money.

Yeah this is what I said. Capitalism in its current state is basically the exploitation of browness to feed whiteness.

The thing is that I have difficulty imagining how capitalism could be defeated given how it absorbs, destroys and consumes everything with ease. This is what we need anti-capitalist theories of race and not that whiteness embedded Marxism.

And we dont have them right now. What we have is many POC around the world trying to de-construct capitalism but they always take the economic part without realising that most of its influence resides in the political and cultural stem it share with whiteness.

Capitalism is not simply a away of living or a way of consumption, it is a whole doctrine. And my question was: Can we, people who live in this society, who have already been indoctrinated really escape it? And I am rather pessimistic about it.

So I was watching an interview of Steve Stoute and was like ‘WOW this dude id...

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 10:10:08 +0100

So I was watching an interview of Steve Stoute and was like ‘WOW this dude id brillaint’. ‘He is so smart’. So I went on and googled him to know more about him and then … UGH! yUCKKK!

Steve Stoute is one of the money men who engineered and is engineering the commodification of African American culture or how he would probably explain it, make black culture cross-over. Which is nonsensical since we know that sub-cultures DO NOT cross over (on their own), they get appropriated and exploited by the dominating culture which detains the power.

This guy sold a cultural identity as an ACCESSORY - whose only value is linked to its ’cool factor’ - to the world and by doing so, took it away from its originators to throw it like a simple rags at the feet of Fortune 500 companies. He is the guy behind Jay-z and G-Unit deals with Reebok.

Also Steve Stoute, who is dark-skinned btw, is notoriously color-struck. He was for a long time one of the big names of an industry - the music industry - who unapologetically hates dark-skinned black women and has been erasing us from the media, EVEN WHEN IT PERTAINS TO ‘BLACK CULTURE’!!! He is also behind Carol’s Daughter’s move to publicly disown black women - a group of women who made that company - by launching a campaign with only racially-ambiguous and light-skinned women to represent the ‘diversity’ of their demographics and go after a ‘poly-ethnic’ market. I know they are bitterly regretting it today, especially since Solange left! In Steve Stoute’s perfect world, dark-skinned black women would not exist, I guess.

Basically Steve Stoute is one of those people who think that racism can be ended by selling brownness and blackness to white people as disposable objects of consumption. Yeah racism can be ended by the capitalistic exploitation of minority groups’ identities. I am not even kidding; he had a show called the ‘Tanning of America’ (¬_¬)! This is not the first time I hear something like that. I remember watching Jay-z - you know, that dude who was selling Occupy Wall Street t-shirts to get his pocket fatter off a movement protesting against the excesses of capitalism (-_-” )- saying something similar on Oprah. And I am certain that Russell Simmons would agree with him.

What is interesting to note, is the fact that though the cultural exploitation and appropriation of African American culture ultimately benefit white-owned Fortune 500 companies, behind the scene, they are engineered by African American money men who get idolised for their ‘success’. I don’t want to have a simplistic and moralistic view of this because well, we all live in a world where ‘success’ is seen as something to aspire to and is tied to one’s position on the hierarchical capitalistic and exploitative machine. So I cannot blame people from an oppressed minority for trying to survive by embracing the values of the oppressive group. What I find interesting is the ease with which capitalism absorb EVERYTHING!! Even things that are in essence against it. Henceforth, if we need to sell ourselves to the money God, one of the many god of white supremacy, can we ever escape from it? I guess this is why all black movements of resistance around the world embraced Marxism early on. After the collapse and failure of the Soviet Union, is it reasonable to think that capitalism, with its phoenix-like abilities, can ever be defeated by all the brown people whose exploitation it feeds off, or our attempts to resist are doomed to be phagocyte by and destroy by it?

cosmicyoruba: lookingforthesteel: eclecticspectrum: bludclotar...

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 02:18:00 +0100

cosmicyoruba:

lookingforthesteel:

eclecticspectrum:

bludclotartattack:

eclecticspectrum:

Shouts Outs to The Africans That Claims to Be Jamaicans aka “Kofi Kingston”

For me, this isn’t just comedy. You got faux revolutionaries (shout out to the ones on Tumblr) who think that being from the continent or 1st generation solves all identity issues around that particular kind of blackness. African cultureS are constantly disrespected by white people of course, and yes, other POC. I’ll bet my relaxer money that any 1st generation or recent immigrant kid here in the states has dealt with ignorance from their peers of all colors. Of course, the root of that issue is white hegemony but how often do elementary school students discuss how whiteness teaches them to loathe the POC cultures, in this case, African cultureS?

It’s not cool to be African. Sure there are people who are all about loving mother Africa, appropriating kente cloth and talking about Egypt, excuse me Kemet, as if that is the only place on the continent that produced greatness. (If I see another ankh I’m going to scream.) However, in the grand scheme of things, those people are few and ultimately, their behavior is highly problematic. That’s not to say that there are not people of the diaspora who manage to respect AfricanS and their respective cultureS but in my experience, those are far and few. I hope that others do not share my misfortune.

AfricanS are the butt of jokes in popular American culture. (I almost said Western but let me stick to what I know.) Our accents are mocked and exaggerated. If another person clicks at me I might haul off and punch of them. People think of the poor starving African children to make themselves feel better about their “first world problems”. Never mind that there are hungry children in the so-called first world, and that many Africans have these “first world problems” as well.

In spite of these sentiments, I have never been one to hide my Ghanaian identitieS. As a child liked being able to pick up my cell phone and speak a different language with my family. It didn’t and still doesn’t bother me that My GaGa wears African prints whenever we she goes out. The woman is 2973469732 years old and I don’t think she’s ever put on a pair of pants. I had too much pride (with a smidge of arrogance) for me to feel bad just for being me.

As a Jamaican, I never experienced Africans playing Jamaican, only beef between us.

But real talk, being African only recently became cool here in the UK. Before that, naw, niggas was the butt of all jokes. Jamaicans were the top of the Black people pile for a long time out here.

Thanks for bringing in a UK perspective and being honest. People like to forget that AfricanS, Black AfricanS in particular are teased and disrespected constantly. Being African is not the popular kind of black to be. Hell even the folks who are appropriative are laughed at. Not because folks recognize that their behavior is problematic but because Africans are always laughed at.

No one wants their identity to be treated as a joke or a costume. So I don’t really get too upset with people who aren’t gushing with pride for their African culture. It’s not like it’s encouraged from mainstream society and in a way, it may not be encouraged at home.

In my experience, parents want you to maintain the culture while simultaneously pushing assimilation.

If any of my 1st generation folks have something to add please do. Especially if you’re outside of the United States. Discussions here are always US Centric and I’d love to here about other perspectives.

The one on the UK is so true. When I was growing up, everyone wanted to identify as anything BUT African. And it was a lot cooler to be Jamaican or from the islands. Most people here idolized AA’s. So it’s still a major issues and it really only has been in the past couple of years that being Africa (or rather wearing wax prints etc) has become cool. Still, I don’t know how long that will last, given the way that taste is so easily coerced. And it’s not like people still don’t make “fresh of the boat” jokes, or ridicule African accents. So *le sigh

Adding to the UK perspective as well. I personally know a lot of Africans who (in the past) would lie about their nationalities because they didn’t want to be seen as African. Apparently this is all changing thanks to azonto and P-Square. But like lookingforthesteel suggests, you never really know.

(And how are they going to use an image of the badass circus performer who tamed a gotdamn hyena so that his daughter rides on it like a horse in a negative manner?)