#but he compensates by coming across as reasonably articulate and eloquent

[canisalbus]

Oh, speaking of Vasco & Machete's voices, I always imagined machete as having either a very high and delicate voice or an uncharacteristically grave, low and regal voice, similar to how Jeremy Irons voices Scar in the original lion king. I personally like the grave voice idea much more, i find it at the same time a curve ball and somehow fitting of Machete

I think it's a little bit of both. Machete has a meticulously crafted work persona that is quite different from what he's like off the clock, you could say he has developed a distinct customer service voice. It's imperative that he comes across as professional, respectable and authoritative, so he has learned to use a lower register than he normally would, and keeps his tone cold, measured and impersonal. I'd say he sounds dignified and somewhat long-suffering, often with a tired, bitter creak. All in all he sustains this business facade quite well.

In private he's very soft-spoken and tends to have an underlying wounded, whimpery frailness to him. He practically never raises his voice but when sufficiently agitated, he becomes a fast and expressive talker and his pitch rises sharply. He doesn't sing (outside of conducting an occasional Mass, I suppose) but has a surprisingly light and airy laugh.

[creativityworks-s5]

Being Black and Hating Black History Month

Martin Luther King.  Carter G. Woodson  . Lewis Howard Latimer.  Maya Angelou.  Ralph Bunche. Out of the 5 names listed above, my bet is you recognise two of the names listed.

Truth is, I already know which ones they are.

The other three, well, ones known as the father of black history and the reason we celebrate black history month, the other is widely regarded as one of the greatest inventors of the 20th century, and the last is the very first black person to win a Nobel Prize for his peacekeeping efforts in the Arab-Israeli conflict in Palestine.

You see, I’m not shocked that the two names you likely register, are the two names commonly associated with slavery, apartheid, segregation and civil rights movement.

It’s what you were taught right?! I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you were made to believe black History was created and given to African descendants as a part of the peace treaty after the civil rights movement. p>

For the record, I’m a proud black young African woman but even the thought of Black History Month makes my skin crawl. Though at risk of my “black card” being revoked, I’ll discuss my views on why I feel black history is essentially nowadays a token tribute, and now severely aids in undermining the purpose it was once originally designed for.

Every October, we briefly honour the achievements of black people throughout history.                                                                                                                       A well-meaning concept once designed to teach about our history and achievement’s as black people, now happens to be the hall pass where everyone pretends to briefly care about the racial inequality afflicted upon black people.

When we marched and screamed “black lives matter” across the world in the other eleven months as a result of the daily racial injustice and police brutality against black lives in America, our white privileged counterparts declared “all lives matter”.

When Dylan Roof, a 21 year old white supremacists terrorists shot and killed 9 people in a church, the media quickly identified him as young man “suffering with mental disorders”. He was even treated him to a Burger King after he complained he was hungry, minutes after being arrested.

When Munroe Bergdorf recently aired her views that “all white people are racist” and  “that western society as a whole, is a system rooted in white supremacy – designed to benefit, prioritize and protect white people before anyone of any other race”, she was dropped as part of L’Oréal social justice campaign for being too honest about her personal experiences of being black.

When the Charlottesville attack happened in America, where white supremacist went about “yelling “white lives matter”, terrorizing and causing the death of an anti- racist protester, Trump failed to condemn the action of white supremacists instead stating “both sides were to be blamed”.

Week by week, another black live is gunned down.

Killed as a result of police brutality which lately seems to be encouraged by the legal system , we turn yet another blind eye.

But when Black history month rears its head, we pretend to care about the same injustice we’ve ignored the other 48 weeks of the year. Everyone’s quick to show their allegiance to the non-racist committee, the spokesperson for all the black people they know, and more than happy to sit round a fire singing Kumbaya.

You see my problem?

We relegate black history and existence to originating from slavery; we then regurgitate that same narrative told to us within the curriculum, so much so that when young black people are asked of the meaning of black history month to them, the common theme is slavery and civil rights movement.

What they don’t know is “slavery is not African history, slavery interrupted African history”, Mutabaruka.

The curriculum fails to continuously mention how the wealth of the west nowadays is built on Africa’s exploitations. Textbooks erase the existence of Africa’s great empires and civilisations, such as the Oyo Empire. Scientific knowledge that were widely known in Africa were long in existence before being taught to Europeans. The removal of economic wealth and trade with other countries such as Arabia are erased from the books we teach our children with.  We forget to mention how white men came to Ghana in search for gold, but greed overtook them and the people that they came to as partners, became commodities also.

The educational system now uses black history month as a token tribute where the truth is modified, where anything is possible because victory is won and slavery is gone, but more importantly we don’t have to pay for reparations for slavery since we’ve been allocated a whole month to talk about our ordeal.

I fail to yet understand why out of all the atrocities inflicted upon a race, why black history month is the only one that exists. I mean the Jewish suffered just as much as African descendants, but in a shorter space of time. They were uprooted from their homes, yet the 1952 reparations agreement ensured that every Jewish individual was compensated for losses in livelihood and property.

Is the west afraid of losing its first world status should it have to pay its debts of exploiting a race for over 300 years?

Whilst interviewing Morgan Freeman in 2005 in 60 seconds, Mike Wallace is then put in the awkward position of whether he would like a Jewish month, to which he responds immediately no.

The problem with his answer is clear; when you create a month to discuss “their history” you segregate black people from “the history”. Black history is British history. Black history is American History. By having this month dedicated to a narrative of slavery, you create an internalized otherness which is still prevalent today.

A common example is in the media and the language we use, if a person of color  commits the same crime as a white person, 9 out of 10 times, the media will label the colored individual as a “thug” “criminal” or similar connotations, whilst labeling the white man as a “loner, mental health suffer” and etc.

We teach young black children to survive and achieve in today’s society, we must behave and conform to our leaders examples, whom are overwhelmingly white men.

We teach young black children to shrink themselves, so that we may break the glass ceiling that enslaves social mobility.

We teach young black women to behave, dress and think a certain way, don’t say this you don’t want to be labelled as the “angry black girl”. Our natural afro hair has been condemned in the media numerous times as unprofessional, to the point where wearing weave and relaxers appears to be the norm.  

Our young men are constantly reminded that the world is against them, constantly vilified in the media as “violent, aggressive or uncivilised”.

We’re taught we must work twice as hard, and always have our best foot forward to avoid becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy of societal stereotypical expectation, to achieve societal acceptance we must disregard and distance ourselves from the black discussions which puts our white counterparts at unease.

And when we do conform and play to our given guidelines, were responded with comments like “you act/talk like a white person”.  What may seem like a compliment is casually implying racist ideologies.  Are white people the only ones that are able to be articulate themselves, or is it so ingrained within our society that a non-white person is only able to conversate as an ignorant hoodrat.

I’m not in agreement of scrapping black history month; it’s the only time young black children learn a small but detrimental and hindering part of their history.  And as Maya Angelou once eloquently described “if you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going”.

I’m however definitely not subscribing to this white washed tale of events that we constantly feed everyone, and expect the black community to be grateful for what seems as progressive, when in actual reality, has effectively changed from a physical abuse to a mental warfare.

Sincerely,

An opinotated angry black girl.

By Zainab Alejo