Black Looks

• Keep the oil in the soil

  Posted: November 30, 2009, 3:03 pm by Sokari

  A meeting of civil society organisations, lawyers, media, academics in Port Harcourt to discuss the future of oil in the Niger Delta and it’s impact on climate change and sustainability have issued a strong militant statement to the Federal Government.  The meeting was chaired by Nnimmo Bassey, the Director of Environmental Rights Action who described [...]

• What to do……….

  Posted: November 30, 2009, 2:12 pm by Sokari

  “”…what happens from now on depends very much on what people like you are going to do. If you become energized, engaged, involved, active, organized, protesting and so on – OK, there can be more historical changes. If you choose to resign to apathy and obedience, then you get a reconstruction of what happens before. [...]

• Poéfrika interview with January O’Neil

  Posted: November 30, 2009, 8:14 am by Rethabile

  1. What’s your relation to poetry? How do you interact with it? Poetry is my vocation. There’s nothing I enjoy more than finding the right words, or finding a series of “wrong” words and making them right. ———- 2. Do you work on just one poem at a time, or do you work on several at the same [...]

• My skin is ………….

  Posted: November 28, 2009, 4:11 pm by Sokari

  Four women – Nina Simone Via Poefrika

• Will I be turned away?

  Posted: November 27, 2009, 8:33 pm by Sokari

  If I walked through the bush, and in chest-high water through the river, and through more thick bush, and I crawled under the wire and climbed over the electric fence to reach South Africa If I came through the river because I had no money for the documents, nor to bribe officials at the border post, but I was so desperate Will I be turned [...]

• Violence against women: Do something!

  Posted: November 25, 2009, 5:25 pm by Sokari

  Today is the first day of 16 days of activism against violence against women. A brief note on what we mean by gender based violence. Ore at W.TEC uses the quotes the UN definition which rightly includes the “treat of violence” and “deprivation of liberty” “any act of gender-based violence [...]

• 10 Sexual Assault Prevention Tips Guaranteed to Work!

  Posted: November 24, 2009, 4:28 pm by Sokari

  This has been circulated around the internet but no one seems to know where it originated. I’m linking this back to the F-Word as their photo fits in well with these tips. 1. Don’t put drugs in people’s drinks in order to control their behavior. 2. When you see someone walking by themselves, leave them [...]

• Nairobi Heat & Egg-Larva-Pupa-Woman

  Posted: November 24, 2009, 3:59 pm by Sokari

  After finishing Allah is Not Obliged just over a week ago I have now ordered and intend to read everything by Ahmadou Kourouma.  Maybe this is an over reaction to an incredible reading experience which includes Brian Chikwava’s Harare North [still writing the review on this] – we will see.   Since then I have started two other [...]

• Uganda: no stone throwing in glass houses

  Posted: November 23, 2009, 4:00 pm by Sokari

  In “Uganda is… Who is in our hearts of hearts” Dan Mosenberg tells us about the ANERELA movement in Uganda begun by Rev. Gideon B. Byamagusha to provide support to religious leaders living with HIV/AIDS . Rev Byamagusha was the first Anglican Bishop to declare his HIV status. There are now some 2,000 [...]

• Shailja Patel on poetry performance & resistance

  Posted: November 22, 2009, 7:00 pm by Sokari

  Kenyan performance poet and activist Shailja Patel speaks on her work as an activist and the responsibility of individuals and civil society in pursuing social justice. Shailja discusses a range of issues from the role of civil society in Kenya, climate change, capitalism and Barack Obama and excellently brings together the connection between [...]

• Women’s rights across Africa

  Posted: November 21, 2009, 6:30 pm by Sokari

  This weeks Pambazuka News has a special Women’s issues focusing on the last 15 years since Beijing Platform for Action and the future for women’s rights on the continent. The essays cover securing women’s rights, gender and conflict, what has been achieved to date and a programme for action for the 16 [...]

• I’m reminded…

  Posted: November 20, 2009, 5:00 pm by Mia Nikasimo

  Violent suppression of initiatives we cannot understand or even deaths in the African Diaspora as well as the African LGBTI set us back for generations but worse still is the hypocrisy and corruption that blinds us to this fact. Why? When you kill a living being because of their gender identity or whatever reason, you [...]

• Transgender day of remembrance

  Posted: November 20, 2009, 4:15 pm by Sokari

  From Gender DynamiX This Friday Daisy Dube will be remembered. Daisy was shot and killed in Yeoville in 2008 because of her gender identity. She and three drag queens out for the night stopped and asked three men in a car to stop calling them “isitabane.” (A isiZulu slur used for LGBT people). Her cold blooded [...]

• Trans: transgender life stories from South Africa

  Posted: November 18, 2009, 8:44 pm by Sokari

  I feel so proud and over joyed to be writing this post today. In spite of the struggle against transphobia and homophobia two exciting ground breaking pieces of work are happening in Africa which celebrate Transgender lives on the continent. The first is the launch of Trans: Transgender Life Stories from South [...]

• The ladies are Nudist! So what?

  Posted: November 18, 2009, 4:03 pm by Sokari

  Kayode Ogundamisi posted this note on Facebook commenting on the Lagos State Government’s “Rambo” raid on private nightclubs. The club dancers were dehumanised and photographed in the nude by security forces with the photos being sent to the press. Kayode’s comment speaks to the whole issue of hypocrisy, citizens rights and policing morality [...]

• Allah is not obliged – walahé!

  Posted: November 17, 2009, 3:41 am by Sokari

  “ Allah is not obliged – to be fair about all things he does here on earth” is the mantra that weaves itself through this remarkable novel by Ahmadou Kourouma. This was my first reading of Kourouma which I started at 11am and finished around 6.30pm. In those seven hours [...]

• Bamako Encounters

  Posted: November 16, 2009, 9:47 pm by Sokari

  The 8th edition of the Bamako Encounters – African Photography Biennial is a month long celebration of African photography. This year, inspired by the theme “Borders”, 10 Nigerians made the journey from Lagos to Bamako by road in a Volkswagen mini bus driving through 6 West African countries: Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, [...]

• Tongues of Clout (for Geoffrey Philp)

  Posted: November 14, 2009, 10:38 pm by Rethabile

  These images our sleep has given to the poets. Images the mouth turns round and spits out, clean as pits sucked off, the raw tongue finding the texture awright. Poets are always talkin’ about heaven, the pain of the four seasons, countless lucky stars at night, winking; some poets write even hell though none can pave the way back: what happens when a child loses its soul, [...]

• New Year, 2009

  Posted: November 11, 2009, 9:42 am by Rethabile

  A poem by the National Poet of Wales to honour the Inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America on 20th January 2009 Venus in the arc of the young moon is a boat the arms of a bay, the sky clear to infinity but for the trailing gossamer of a transatlantic plane. The [...]

Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes