One of my Twirra faves asked this question today: How did young African lovers express affection in precolonial times before kissing was introduced by Europeans? (Apart from intercourse duh) — Dragon Queen 🎥🇬🇭🏳🌈 (They/Them) (@selasie_afi) August 29, 2015 This is a topic and a question that has interested me for a long time as well, […]
It is no secret that I love Gyedu Blay-Ambolley. I’ve written consistently about my adoration for the Simigwahene over the years. In fact, meeting him was on the list of things for my ChaleWote Envoy to day this past weekend. That is why I don’t understand why one Ayawuku would do what she did to […]
Every day, Ghanaian women and men suffer the indignities of physical assault and verbal abuse by those who feel empowered and at liberty to do so. And while these follies are not uniquely Ghanaian in nature, they must be addressed head-on because they affect us as Ghanaians. We only compound our inability to better ourselves […]
Kidnapping is real. It’s scary. It’s the reason I stopped watching Law & Order:SVU once I began bearing children. The very idea that a stranger could muster the unmitigated gall to not only initiate conversation with MY child, let alone approach him/her with the intention of stealing them away from our home causes ice to […]
Keep in mind, I can’t pay you ooooo. If I could pay you, I’d be there myself. Man. I prayed. I prayed and asked God and the Universe to allow me to go to ChaleWote2015. I even asked some of you to send vibrations to the Universe. Did you vibrate, or did you forget […]
Before I begin, I must implore Black people not to allow ourselves to get distracted. We must not be driven by sheep or led by the nose-ringed bull at an agricultural fair by its handler. Make no mistake: when we allow our focus to be lost to petty diversions – of any sort – we […]
I would have written a 1600 word post about my angst, but I have to run out and meet Akuba Sheen(!) for pancakes in 10 minutes. Ghana will celebrate 60 years of independence in 2017. In 60 years, no one has dramatized the struggle that our people have gone through. Sure, there are loads of […]
Sometimes, my husband leaves his wallet at home. He leaves it lying carelessly on the dining room table or on the brown, felt-covered cube I bought two years ago from Wal-Mart to store extra pencils and exercise books. For some women, the sight of a wallet lying unattended presents a rare opportunity to spend some […]
“Stone! Come and pick up all these strips of paper from my floor. Who did this?” “Argh! I told Castillo not to do this, but he said he was Sharp Boy. He was using his head to cut pieces of paper.” I paused and looked at my son, in order to process what I was […]
(…or she may have been Wendy the Welder. I can’t ask her, because she’s dead.) The years between 1939-1945 must have been an intoxicating time, fraught with uncertainty, new possibilities and loads of change. The Second World War had changed everything for Americans, and my Aunt Clara was not to be exempted from the alterations […]
This is not MY Jem. That’s been the common refrain – nay, the battle cry – among lovers and true fans of the original 80s cartoon classic ‘Jem and the Holograms’. We are pissed…but moreover, we are hurt. There are certain things that should be left untouched and untarnished if you cannot afford to or […]
I know, I know. I promised a month or two ago that I was unlooking Ghana, never to look back lest I turn into a behemoth pillar of pure NaCl , but this is too exciting to ignore! Indulge me for just a moment and then we can go back to discussing really important world […]
I’m sure this post would have been more impactful if it had been published at say, 8:00 this morning, but like many parents in Gwinnett and Fulton county, I was a bit busy outchea in these here streets, sans offspring. That’s right folks! School is back in session and all is right in the universe! […]
Generally speaking, the concept of what an African marriage looks like brings to mind certain clichés. African men are encouraged to avoid marriage for as long as possible for the benefit of seeking fortune, while African girls are instructed to make marriage their end goal in life. There are strict gender roles that govern the […]
Just hang in there with me. I was watching a kung fu film set in ancient China called ‘Drink With Me’ earlier this week, and a wandering warrior named Golden Swallow was passing through town in search of her brother, who had been captured by bandits and was being held for ransom. Golden Swallow and […]
https://www.facebook.com/mediatakeout/videos/1046477345384212/ With the constant bombardment of images and videos depicting police brutality, it certainly feels like it is a trend on the rise. I don’t believe we will ever truly know how many people have died at the hands of the American police, since the force and the judicial system itself has staked their collective […]
At the turn of the century, in the early 1900s when forensics was a fairly new science, there was an trend in and aspect of forensic photography that I found unsettling. I’m being modest. It’s not unsettling; it’s repugnant. All too frequently, forensic photographers – and sometimes even news reporters – would restage a crime […]
My cousin died at the age of 56 about a month ago. My siblings and I went up to Detroit for the funeral, where we had a chance to reconnect with childhood friends and old folk who remembered us fondly. My aunt Cynthia, who outlived her firstborn child, was cooling herself with a fan and […]
“Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed, and planted , and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And arn’t I woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man—when I could get it—and bear the lash as well! And arn’t I a woman? I […]
The only person I’ve confessed this to is my BFFFL: Going to the beach makes me sick. One night, when we were sitting on the veranda of some James Town dive overlooking the ocean, I felt myself getting restless and queasy. Soon, I was just downright sick to my stomach. “I don’t like coming to […]
It requires a fair amount of hubris and cheek to go on vacation and assume that anyone anywhere would care to have you share the gritty details of how you idled endless hours in a hammock munching on fresh fruit and being lulled to sleep by the ocean’s waves…so allow me to express my gratitude […]