African Names Are Timeless. Give Your Child One.
We don’t mind and you should.
I don’t like extremes. Not cancel culture and definitely not wokeism.
The noise is disturbing- Kim Kardashian has to explain why she is wearing cornrows and some woke warriors wanted her to apologize for it. They called it cultural appropriation. Ha.
The noise is alarming- Nancy Pelosi drew the ire of woke activists when she wore Ghanian Kente to take a knee. *eye roll*
Thing is-
Who asked the Africans?
Are you African, prove me wrong in the comments by telling me that you are African, living in Africa and you really care that Kim Kardashian had cornrows on or that Nancy Pelosi wore Kente. Please tell me how you were annoyed by it. I will love to be corrected.
Are you African living in Africa, please tell me in the comments that you are not secretly thrilled when you see people from all over the world “appro-ciate” our culture, names or whatever in a way that is positive?
“Appro-ciate” is my made up word for appropriating something (hairstyle, clothes, name etc), in a way the appreciates that it.
Simple: Appropriate + Appreciate= Appro-ciate. Use it as one word, I still don’t mind.
Come to my Africa and I can assure you that we will weave your cornrows on you, sew our traditional clothes for you and video your dance of appreciation to put it on social media.
Africans are very open and welcoming towards foreigners.
All the noise to the contrary is annoying. Even my grandmother would have cautioned these ‘enlightened’ folks about getting angry cos some white woman braided her hair.
Until I got on the internet, I never understood how people take offence for other people?
Do you think that the African that you pay money to braid cornrows, minds that you are wearing it? In this poor economy?
If you buy our clothes (NOT FROM CHINA), and do like Serena Williams, who had a Nigerian sew kimono for her, do you think we will not be happy to see it?
Can the cancel warriors and the wokesters take a bow when people appro-ciate our culture, please?
Cos, Africans don’t mind!
When Kerry Washington named her daughter, Amara, it made news. Yes her husband is Nigerian but she could as well have named her Grace (the English translation).
Are you Spanish, welcome, we have cool names for your children. Are you French? Same.
Wherever you are from, please appro-ciate our names. Our names are beautiful, never carelessly given so very meaningful and as a result, timeless.
I think it is really simple. I want my African culture to endure forever and we cannot do it alone or by hiding out of sight.
Many parts of our culture have become westernized. We demonize the stories of our ghosts and witches. We fight against our children seeing masquerades. People hide to visit the shrines to serve whichever god suits them.
And this isn’t Westerners doing it for us. This is happening here in Africa.
Now on social media, activists are fighting tooth and nail to prevent the showcase of our names, hair, clothes, art and the likes.
How does it benefit Africans that our culture is dying? Where else can we showcase ‘us’?
How does it benefit the African creator and artist that his work sits looking at him because Africans around him cannot afford to buy it and the foreigners who can afford to purchase are avoiding cancel culture and wokesters?
You go to Hawaii and you buy a Hawaiian shirt. You show it off proudly. You visit Mexico and you showoff your sombrero.
What is the difference when these showoffs put money in the pockets of the locals?
Why then are keyboard warriors taking offense at the showcasing of African clothes, hair, art, names? Please stop ‘helping’.
You are being toxic.
African tourism needs to grow but people have to see a need for it. People have to see a need to come proudly- not to steal them from museums or to cart of significant artifacts but to buy our clothes from our locals.
African tourism needs to grow so our beautiful dishes can take their pride of place on a global scale.
African tourism needs to grow so our local clothes can have a bigger market. So people can wear our cornrows.
Ps: Africans can speak for themselves.
Thank you for reading. Buy me a coffee?
