The Food Divorce

That food and marriage are connected is not a matter of debate for most people. What is less obvious is how the same institution that is supposed to bring people together might be actually bent on separating us from our food. Here I am mostly speaking specifically about my observations of marriage amongst the Kenyan diaspora but one can certainly extrapolate the same case to the general institution of marriage under capitalism or amongst any dominated group of people.

It occured to me that our defination marriage is extrinsically defined. Which is itself not necessarily a bad thing.  Culture is one of three of the most oppressive institutions, the other partners in crime being religion and government. It behoves man to be weary of their oppressive tendencies at evey turn.

 The number one charge I would bring against them is unnecessary control against freedom of thought and the unjust enrichment which ensue. It is the unjust enrichment that causes a power imbalance. 

That is probably one of the main reasons I follow Mwende's writings. Her thinking out of the three above boxes has earned her a front seat at my imaginary gathering of a freedom lovers.

So the first thought was what marriage are you talking about?

When people are oppressed and living under the gaze of empires, there are no marriages. It's like planting off season. Nothing will grow. It's all vanity! It's like betting at the casino.  The only beneficiary is the casino. Marriage under the churches and governments benefits them, primarily. 

 Marriage is the most expensive emmotional and material investment community can expect to have. No other barometer can measure how how healthy a community is. It's also one of the best predictors of how the future will look like.

In marriage you have two major things happening in the shortest time possible with the longest impact that reaches far into the future generations. Two people assemble in front of a gullible crowd and make a promises that few will hold them accountable to, besides the issuer of the marriage certificates and the lawyers who will help both parties disolve such unions. All others are spectators and collateral damage. 

You don't have to take my word for it. History is full of people whose lives touches our lives in a big way, both positive and negative. Many of those people ideally came about as a result of a marriage. 

If I was to borrow two of the defining concepts of Western arnarchist thinker, James Prudon, marriage is theft and propaganda by the deed.

Marriage is propaganda as it's an agent that propagates certain ideologies. If you are a morman or catholic,  there are no better ways to spread your ideas than giving birth or by extension having other with your ideas give birth also. Oppressive ideas and people grow in numbers mostly through marriages. In less measure, just like progressive and enlightening ideas and people.

I am not suggesting that ideas would not thrive in the abscence of marriages but that certain ideas can be easily spread through marriages.  It's a very subtle but highly effective tool of control. By those who plan to dominate or enslave others, gaining control of what and how people marry can be a source of great power.

On a different level, marriage is a theft. There are so many levels in which it is theft. 

First, it is very difficult to discuss fairness in marriage in a capitalistic sense. There is no equality in marriage except fairness, support in the common goals and satisfaction in the fulfillment of community and biological obligation.

The community investment where those who contribute have little say in the investment. Marriages in our modern days are social. Yet, the community has little influence in what they invest in. 

In my Gìkùyù culture, for example, the extended family would invest in securing a wife for one of their sons. In return, they expected the girl to bear children for the family. I personally don't think it is the best option possible but it was clear why the community was involved and what they expected in return. 

The resources we currently  exchanged between families could be best used to surporting the struggle for a social issues that plague our society and partly the newly weds. 

Times have changed and a totally different culture has replaced our tradional way of life. Yet our marriages are still wedded, no pun intended,  to our old ways. This has caused some to take advantage of others in the most blatant ways.

 Amongst the Kenyans in the diaspora,  there have been cases where couples have been alleged to have married just for the sake of fleecing money from their fellow gullible country men. The couple would plan a wedding and raise funds in the U.S to conduct weddings in Kenya. That is illogical in many ways. How does that make sense? There again lays outright theft. How does a  people from a country living on debt, suffering from all manner of social, economic, political and environmental ills invest sums as high as 10 million in an investment that is so poorly insured?

How is it poorly insured? Because there are so many huddles for marriages amongst an oppressed group. Unemployment, poor diet, poor governments,  corruption, food insecurity, high numbers of unmarried men and women all impact existing marriages. That means a marriage that takes place during times of instability will most likely fail. 

My fears are not unfounded. The institution of marriage is in crisis. It's a confirmation that crisis in our society means crisis in marriage.  Unfortunately, many act as though marriage is an institution made in heaven or the stars and therefore immune to all the crisis we face here on earth. To think that is to be openly  perpetuating both theft and negative propaganda.

This does not however mean that marriage is inherently bad. It has the ability to provide a lot of good to both the culture and the people involved. My focus for this post was about how it is used and abused keep many powerless and working for the benefit of others. I am especially reminded of the relationship between a male Praying Mantis, where by the male offers its head in exchange to mating. Its head is then eaten and then the female allow the headless male to inject the late late males sperms into the female. Before you say that playing mantis are insects and of little consequence, let us look at the smartest animal that is also man's best friend. In the world, the world dogs have one alpha female who is the only one who can bear children. In case any other lesser female bears puppies, those puppies are killed. I know the Praying Mantis and dogs are not married but their relationship slightly mirrors human relationships in its most exploitative state. It is on those grounds that I are making a case for a justice marriage.

In the end, we cause a divorce in Sustainability and Justice. Where we see the evidence of that divorce is in food. We are ever growing apart from our food.

If you haven't eaten and loved freely, I truly say unto you, you haven't truly lived.

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Food and the politics of identity

Back in the early 2000, I had the honor of spending some time with Kenyan traditionalist group that espoused Gìkùyù religion. It worked perfect as I was a graduate student in Anthropology and was also in a deep journey of self discovery. My ethnicity also happens to be Gìkùyù.

After a long decade in the Diaspora, my longing for home and a clarity of who and whose I was could not be suppressed much longer. I just happened to be reading James Baldwin masterpiece The Fire Next Time. It definitely contributed to my desire to define myself to myself.

Unlike James Baldwin, my fire was unwilling to wait for next time. But in his spirit of self-defination, I was eager to strech mine a bit deeper. In his famouss words. “I am not your Niggar “, I was was attempting to answer the next natural question of to “whose” I was.

Baldwin’s book was a great backdrop to the work I was embarking on. It was my form of coming of age intellectually for a person of African descent living under a culture whole meteoric rise was predicated upon the demise of Africanity.

Baldwin did the heavey lifting for this son of the soil. He had been a preacher and experienced first hand the hypocrisy behind that industry. There was so much I appreciated about Baldwin's journey.

That did not mean that I too had my own lifting to do and there was no escaping that.

I therefore took up an internship at U.N headquarters in Nairobi for three months, with an additional 6 weeks for research. The bulk of my research was spent with adherents of a traditional group was popularly known as Thaai, which is a derivative from the Gìkùyù word thayu, which means peace.

The group would be later pressured into taking a formalized name of Tabernacle of the Living God. The spiritual system the group followed closely mirrored the traditional worship of the Gìkùyù people before the coming of the White man.

The story of the group is very instructive about how modern African governments often suppress traditional spiritual systems as they are fertile ground for fomenting resistance. The group has faced a lot of persecution in the hands of the government. The leader of the group,  Ngonya wa Gakonya was a thorn on the side of the government of the former autocratic president and the regime that followed to the last day. 

During the time period in question, I happened to be reading the Black Jacobins and a few other books about Cointelpro that was conducted by the FBI against the revolutionary groups in the U.S.

What I was not ready for is to realize that the government of Kenya had a similar program against this Gikùyù traditionalists. The group was later dividend and undermined until the leader passed away in 2006 when the group was just a shadow of its hay days. The songs below are songs captured during the funeral of leader. 

The music I heard during the groups meetings at a public roundabout at the edge of Nairobi was the closest thing to the songs and dance of the Gìkùyù before colonialism. There was a lot nuances that one can pick up from the way these people were relating to each other. It is one of the most precious and memorable example I know that demonstrates a functional people who are proud to exercise their culture as a form of  struggle.

The another observation that become quite clear was that there are very blurred lines between politics and spirituality. I have since come to realize that African spirituality is not something that you believe in but more of what you do on a daily basis. Secondly, It is extremely difficult to exercise spirituality in the face of oppression. It is no wonder that our people have fallen for foreign religions that reflect those who had usurped their power to govern themselves.

It should be the priority of Africans to be totally free first and foremost. It is difficult to conceptualize African spirituality in the global injustice we face as a people. Not too far behind in significance, you can't eat slave food and practice African spirituality. Food is the the greatest mark of our vibration and dead vibration produces slaves and so does slave food.

You can never fully colonize or enslave any group of people until you colonize and enslave their food.  Thus, the road to African Spirituality is a wonderful one to travel but it is strewn with struggles for justice, food and freedom.  We have to overcome those struggles before we can fully achieve or arrive at African Spirituality. At the heart of the above struggles is the ability to define one's identity and the food that feed that identity. On the front, the fire to win that battle is now, otherwise there might never be any fire next time. It is easier to proclaim whose were are not, but if the person we donounce continues to feed you ultimately will own you.

An African Anarchist

I have to say that I have had deep suspicion about wishing my friends a happy new year. I wished very few, if any, happy holidays or happy new year this year. Not that I wish anyone any harm, disappointment or sadness. But as I grow old, I am experiencing an overwhelming desire to live an honest life. 

Having done my fair share of living lies, travelling and reading, I have come to the conclusion that as an African man, I have about four major options I can take.

One of the most common and attractive is to be a dreamer. This option is closely related to the religious path. You believe not in the things as you wish them to be. You take the angle that even though bad things are happening all around you, those conditions are ephemeral.  You see yourself as transcending that reality and on your way to greater things. You get so sucked into the unreal that it affects everything you do. You even demand that others recognize and respect your imagined reality.  It is even possible to feel pity on others who fail to join you in your imagined reality. As more and more people join that imagined reality that benefits just a few, the force that trumps reality over imagined reality tends to be the norm.

The second option is join the dysfunctional, dehumanizing and exploitative system at a small cost of selling your soul. That means that you follow the simple goal of maximizing your profits regardless of what damage you cause to the community,  environment or political system. You attend the recommended school and engage your time in the preferred studies that an exploitative system needs to survive. You are handsomely rewarded, even as your work continues to destabilise mankind. You are now in a position to buy a lot of useless toys that soothes  your conscience for the harm you causes. 

The third option is to be addicted to the substances that the sick system produces to keep the matrix going. From fashion to alcohol , music, to drugs and sports.  All the above are distractions 

The fourth is to fight for what is our true nature: freedom. You learn that there are no  shortcuts in life. Each of the ways above comes at cost. Running away from the truth means running for life. The only sure way is fighting for what is real, whatever the cost.

Please save the praise and worship stories here. I am not looking for a blessing,  you can't write me a check if you have no money in the bank.

 It's for that reason I ask my friends not to wish blessing on me, that comes only from your parents. Any other blessing has to be something tangible. Bless me with a book, money, food or truth. But not by promising me that some higher force will act upon your command and do your bidding to solve my problems.  That higher force must be very mediocre to have allowed me to suffer just because your important self had not showed up  to put the final signature so that my blessings can be released. 

The  above scam has been played on human beings long than I care to remember. A being that loves a cheerful giver, yet that deity owns everything in this world and beyond. I am reminded here of the lord's storehouse with is overflowing with goodies. This not particularly an attractive preposition in light of all the suffering around me. But again, maybe I live in the wrong side of town where the good master just hasn't had time to attend to. 

That deal or arrangement is too one sided. Whichever jury or council that agreed to that arrangement must have been high of some holy shit. Who can sign on to warped deal like that?

I give at least ten percent for what? An SGR rail built by the Chinese is the most expensive project and even that did not cost that much. What I received during my days of tithing was, well, what I already had. I continue to receive it in abundance even after I directed that portion of my income to earthly endeavours. The tithes therefore was just like a goodwill or bribe for a nonexistent business. 

What is worth remembering is that I have to be out of my mind to think that a group of people can be dehumanised for over a thousand years from Arab slavery, to  European slavery, colonialism, neo colonialism and neoliberalism and still be normal. No apologies, no reparations and debriefing. 

If in doubt, read about the Dutch winter Hunger. It explains what starving pregnant Dutch in their third trimester by Nazi soldiers affected the rates of obesity of their children 50 years later. If three months starvation by mothers was enough to change the brains of the children fifty years later, what about Africans?

You can pay 10% of your income to run away from your  demons or you can pay yourself to learn and slay the demons.

This is my reality and yours, it know no new day or blessed day. I matter not if it's your birthday or that of anyone else. 

Accept your reality. I have accepted mine and work according to change what I can. In the meantime,  eat well, free your time and do your best to know what is in your best interest. Those interests  are the causes of war in the world. Jump off the donkey of ignorance, even if you have to fall and bruise your body. I can tell you that it's  far better to walk to Freedom than to ride a stupid donkey to mental slavery. 

And that is what I wish each and everyone not only on this day but every single day.

Awekening to the pain of Caffeine

It was on a Sunday and you might as well call it the day of false prophecy.

  I had spent the previous night at my late aunt Emily's house. For those who knew my aunt, they most likely know her for her exemplary work as a coffee farmer. She was a recipient of all types of awards. That made her extremely proud and she patiently give any guest a tour of her small farm. My aunt is no more and the same can be said of the glory of an industry she was so proud of. I was sure to take three photos of some the coffee tree she planted in the mid seventies.  This year the same coffee trees earned one of her son $130 a year from the back breaking work. The only reprieve is that the cost of chemicals fertilizers and herbicides have already been deducted.  

Let us just look at the chemicals aspect of my cousi's "business". Since labour is quite expensive, he opts to go the cheaper way and use  Round Up at the cost of $3 every time he sprays. The person spraying churches $5 a day. The recommended number times to control weeds is 8 timee. That comes to $64 dollars a year.  

The next stage is the application of fertiliser to the coffee trees. My cousin uses $70 on this leg of the long journey .

Coffee has to be pruned twice a year at  a cost of $60 each time. That gives a cost of $120 dollars a year. 

At this stage all that is left is to picking the " beans of Burden". My cousin reports that he spends about $100 on the labour of picking the beans. 

Doing the math for you is almost an abuse of your intelligence.  Instead, allow me to interject with the story of a  phone charger to put things into context.

After leaving my cousin's small coffee farm we realised that there was no power in the house.  Our infinite wisdom guided us to the nearby shopping centre to buy a car charger. You can see a photo of it too. You will be forgiven for wondering what a phone charger has to do with coffee farming.

The honest truth is the this post is about the phone and not coffee farming.  The story of coffee only gives context to story of the charger. 

The charger on the photo costs me $2.00. The charger is made in China, transported here and retails for the above price.

If the Chinese can produce chargers for Kenyans at that cost while we farm at a hefty loss and no government subsidies.  You are kidding yourself if you think that with such a gap you can avoid one of three things: Revolution, Death or Dictatorship. 

There is something you can afford for good measure. Please skip praying for the coffee the next time you drink a cup of coffee that contains Kenyan or African beans. If you do, please send my cousin or any coffee farmer $ 1 for every cup you drink. That would make the false prophecy real and may even delay Death,Revolution or  Dictatorship!

Ours is a false prophecy!

Superstitions and Health

I have write about food, superstitions and negative ethnicity/racial bias without any favor or prejudice.  So I will not be saying I told you so or saying what I have already said before. What I wish I was more loud about is friendship. One of the subtle casualties of injustice and inequality is genuine friendship.  

Colonialism, slavery primed many for believe in nonexistent forces. On the face of it it appears a harmless practice. What I have realized is that in accordance to the Second Law of Thermodynamics,  entropy increases. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find genuine people in any field. 

From community, to business and even in the most hallowed institutions such as court system, international organizations and religious organizations,  there is a severe lack of honesty.

That dishonesty is now affecting families. It might be one of the reasons why marriages are less stable, while depression and a general feeling of apathy being quite prevalent.  

These are obvious outcomes of a capitalistic system that has ran amok. Our lives and institutions now mirror that exploitative system that considers sustainability as a nuisance.

There are obviously many other factors that we can add to the list. I am however fascinated by the fact that many politicians and religious leaders have offered false, nice-sounding, promises that many have fallen for and in the meantime neglected nurturing  time-tested and proven benefits of viable and genuine friendship.  

Save for one drunk and deluded Nigerian preacher I heard promising that he would go to China and deal with the virus, the fire-breathing power brokers are making very economical utterances which simply adds up to nothing but caution.

Here is a wonderful opportunity to be humans to be free again. Community and friendship time is here! Go forth and try it. There is none that is immune to this problem.  The rich and the poor are equal in this matters. You need no more proof than the coronavirus and the over 100,000 deaths of relatively well of whites that is commonly known as the death of despair. Make friends and live, that is if you survive the death of the stupid economy.  It's the economy, stupid.

A Tribute to A Mississippi Queen

If I was to take a few minutes to do a gastrointestinal reflection on what 30 years in the U.S has meant to my food culture, a most appropriate place to start would be in on the Thanksgiving Sunday in 1989 in as border town of South Haven Mississippi, close Memphis, Tennessee.

This year 30 years ago, I attended New Hope Baptist Church in Southaven Mississippi with my newly wedded wife who was two months pregnant with my daughter. After church, we attended a huge family dinner at the in-laws house. Ms. Warren was the matriarch of the house who would make any feminist blush. 

She understood exactly what African Americans had to do to hold the families together. The Sunday dinners was a family tradition that few missed without a genuine excuse good enough for the queen. The time I spent with Mrs. Warren and her family has had a tremendous impact on my thoughts about food and justice. 

The she would tell me stories about share cropping; how they financed their house from a cleaning wage and a garbage driver's wage coz the bank would not loan them any money. To get around the racist laws, the Warrens would buy building material during the week and then the men in the community would come help build the house. Over the weekend That is exactly what I had seen growing up in the village in Kenya.

The lessons from Mrs. Warren were not always verbal. I learned a ton just from observing how she handled business with style. She was a sharp dresser, bling and all , and also very religious.  It was a great honor to introduce her to my father during a visit for my graduation.  I tried to explain to him the role Mrs. Warren and her family had played during the toughest time of my life. Weather he understood or not is besides the point. What is important is my food culture was connected to that of African Americans through not only through blood but through Mrs. Warren. On this day, I made a wonderful meal only fit for Mrs. Warren. Though I no longer keep the church tradition, I do keep the deep lover she showered me with and a crass attitude for good measure.

What I thought was a challenge at the time turned to be refining training from some of the best. Though uneducated, the wisdom and the warm she illuminated with be with me forever.

Kudos for my dinners around Mrs. Warren kitchen table with family.

For the sake of memories, I made a goat dish with stinging nettles,  malabar spinach,  pumpkin leaves, green bananas,  black pepper,  garlic and cumin.

Modern religions as an obstruction to indigenous cultures

Here is a message so many would find hateful simply because they don't know the history of the catholic church or don't care to know. Religion has caused so much hatred as each claim to have the ultimate truth. The truth of the matter is  that best of them is the one we all keep to ourselves and never use it as a means of dividing ourselves for no good reason. It would be great is everyone kept the good news, that supposedly brings salvation to the world but ends up destroying it, to themselves. It's hard enough agreeing on things we can see, leave alone things we can't see and will most likely never see. 

Catholicism historically looks and treats indigenous religions as stupid, backward and useless. It actively fought other denominations as well as other indigenous religions to eliminate competition.  There was all manner of subterfuge to maintain that dominance and no means were considered extreme. To be fair, Catholicism was not alone in using belief to gain political and economic power by peddling lies and ignorance. 

While I don't advocate abusive language,  I think it's quite insincere for those asking the person who posted this article to respect Catholics when the institution has so much blood on it's hands.

When you know the truth and you have the courage to tell that truth, true salvation is born every single. That salvation is called light and it destroys darkness. It's only through the illuminating light of knowledge, truth, love,justice and harmony to life thrives.

I am sending that illuminating energy on this most somber day, a day  whose energy has been usurped by the the forces of darkness. 

I am celebrating this solemn day for I am always amazed that I did finally see the light and I am free of the control of those dark forces. Much gratitude for those who stood guard at the gates of that illuminating light even when it cost them their lives. It's truly better to die than to live in darkness, though darkness is a form of death itself.

 Ignorance out of habit is still ignorance. It doesn't matter if everyone believes it or if my grandmother who was 200 years old believed it.

It matters not if that ignorance was originated by your brother, white people or is made in China. Only truth stands the test of time.

I am therefore not singing and shouting today over temporary joy that will disappear tomorrow. I am learning on a solid rock whose only constance is that it changes always. I stand ready to grasp more light. Religion on the other has one truth that only begrudgingly changes.

Pyramids of the Soul

What a pleasant surprise to hear from an old friend and an Africanist at heart. The Gillenwaters family were great friends from the early 1990s. This is just one of the hundreds of relationships I built in Memphis with African Americans that changed me for life. It's because of these kind of relationships that I strive to be a better African first and then a better human being second. 

I understood our history and struggle to be human better because of what my Kenyan sensibilities could perceive when around that environment.  Other people played some roles but I have to admit that being around the best and the worst of our experience brought a part of me that was too deeply buried within.  Many will not understand and I am fine with that.

The piece of art here reminds me of my deep hustle that would see me through hell if I needed. It is not simply art, but has a types of relationships and hands that finally came out to be what has been occupying my friend's wall for over a quarter of a century.  My oldest daughter probably has her fingerprints in the back of the art, being that she was always the loyal assistant.

 I was an art dealer in my first year of college and did some brisk business. What I didn't realize is that the experience was my introduction to anthropology and food activism. Many of my art negotiations took place in kitchen tables, barber shops and hair salons. 

My college friends were also like family in a mighty way. The professors were like guardians, uncles and aunts.  If you have never lived outside your home country, attending college and raising a daughter at the same time, just don't even try to imagine. I was also out of status and therefore undocumented for a while. Yet all these was just a passing cloud. It is for such reasons that I owe more than I can ever give. 

I would sell a piece of art, then visit the customers house to see their decor and then frame the piece to fit their decor. This same experience comes out in my approach to food and my love for people. Being in the kitchen of so many wonderful people's home made me feel less lonely. It also made me feel more secure knowing police officers, public officials, professional and most important intellectuals.

Memphis might be the city of the dead but it gave me princely life, love and light. More fire, black fire!