The injustice of power Distancing

I once read the autobiography of Aung San Suu Kyi as a college student. I used to read about her in the major papers then. I was much younger and very thirsty for knowledge that could help me contextualize my condition as a young African who was reeling from a history of powerlessness and a future that was full of uncertainty . I was particularly interested in the story of Burma as one of the trilogy of Asian countries that I first heard as a young boy growing up in my village. The other two countries were China and India.
India was the only country out of the three that had historical connections I could taste. The Indians had been brought to Kenya during the colonization of Kenya as experienced builders of the railway. That is obviously a sanitized, half truth propagates that disguises the underlying injustices that informed the conscription of Indians. The truth of the matter is that India was also a sister country suffering from a wave of European violence on a global scale. It is sobering to realize that globalization as we know it today started with violence, food, markets. You can add culture and religion, though these were used as alibi at first but did later become an extremely lucrative source of wealth for those who invested in them. Ultimately, culture and religion become more permanent sources of not so visible violence.

The Indians did build the railway from the coastal town of Mombasa to the lakeside town of Kisumu. The rail had it's doubters from the onset. The wiser ones called the rail the "lunatic line", which was not without reason. The railway was extremely expensive and it's commercial viability was questionable at best. What few could have foreseen was the impact that the Indians would have on local food. So as a young boy in a small rural village, I could eat rice and chapati occasionally and during celebrations of all manner. So India was known to me through food.
Food in our household was almost exclusively served on Chinese flatware and cutlery. Most of the cups and plates had the stamp "made in China" on the bottom.
Burma was part of the village folklore as a result of men who had been recruited to fight for the British during the Second European war of 1914. I specifically avoid calling it a World war as I have noticed the loaded implication of such a term. By calling a World War, it's possible to assume that there was a unifying purpose for which the whole world was fighting for and from which all involved would benefit.

I obviously knew nothing about the war except that one of the elders, Gítango , was in the war. He retained an old heavy military coat from his days in the battle field. Beyond the cloak, I saw no other benefits from his involvement in the war. His deployment to Burma did make the asian country part of my village folklore and by extension an interest Burma in later years.
That was how I first became interested in Aung San Su Chì. Her struggle for justice gave my interest staying power.
After reading about her, it became obvious that she was connected to the power elite of her country. She received support from westerners that stood to gain financially from her rule.

What amazes me is the number of people who complained about her role in the suffering of the ethnic Rhuhinja people. The Rhuhinja were partly persecuted on religious grounds. That is why I mentioned that religion was not spread by the invaders as a majority but it has turned out that way. Religion was a source of serious contention historically amongst Europeans and Arabs. Other nations are now following the same footsteps of instability based on religious intolerance.
San Suu Chi did not have any real power. She entered into an unfair agreement with the military to help sanitize the military regime and help remove the crippling sanctions that were hurting those in power.
While I am not trying to absolve Aung San Suu Chi from responsibility for the suffering caused to the people of Burma , I cannot avoid noticing the old trend of neglecting the finer details behind global problems that always seem to come back and haunt us.

Aung San Suu Kyi was not the person most deserving of any peace prize then nor now. The Nobel committee also has its own agenda. That agenda is quite different from the billions of people who wait annually to find out who was lucky enough to join the list of Nobel laureates. Others use the opportunity to learn about new and interesting people worth learning about.

I am the first one to admit that I belong to that group. I have learned about a good number of writers and researchers that I wouldn't have otherwise known; at least not in the midterm. One such person was Waslawa Szymborska, the Polish poet who received the price in 1996 at the age of 74 years . I happened to be visiting Poland that year. It was nice to have something to strike a conversation with the learned people I met during my trip. That is the nice part.
Not so nice is the kind of normalization of blood money that perpetuates the power of those privileged at the expense of the dominated, who bore the brunt of the same oppressive practices that produced the privilege currently driving the gap between the haves and the hopeless. By giving the money away, Alfred Nobel keeps a tight grip on power into perpetuity.

All the good vibes and philanthropy can potentially disguise the fact that Alfred Nobel, the source of the money that is now awarded to people doing good things for a small price of always bearing the name of the Nobel mostly after their name is mentioned or written down. Alfred Nobel, much like most of the other wealthy robber barons of his time or the era did not make his money by farming organic foods or anything close. He made his money in the military industrial complex before the term was even coined. He was doing research on explosives and made his fortune selling the technology for making bombs. During his trials, he accidentally killed his brother, an accident he could not forgive himself for. He tasted first hand the poison in the charlace that poisoned the lives of millions of people globally. That technology probably was built on the technology of the guns and gunpowder first invented in China. That technology could have emotionally and physically damaged one of my village elders, Gitango. Those stories of Gitango brought Burma into the radar of my innocent mind.

India had been colonized by the British India Company starting in 1612. The British East Indian Company had a military of 200,000 soldiers by 1800. That number was twice the number of soldiers that England had at the time. While Alfred Nobel would not be born until the 1830s, his research in canon technology, along with more than 350 patents he held in his life as a chemist and engineer. That is what you call power. For all the pain and suffering he caused, the smartest of us, or at least those they consider the smartest and most worthy will bear the name of Nobel even after they pass away.
Aung San Suu Kyi has little power as she is not White and neither am I and many who are still operating under the principle of social distance not due to corona but the long standing historical tradition of being distant from power. I only knew three countries while growing up in the village. Now know way more countries from Asia and beyond, but how much closer does that bring me to power? A Nobel nomination is great but closing the distance to power is far better. It eliminates the power vacuum that produces the injustices we currently face. Sadly, these injustices are mostly invisible, disguised and underrated. We have actualized the popular monkey cartoon of seen no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. Talk of a recipe of perpetual pain. We are in need of a cross that can hang and crucify our oblivion and cross over from a world of endarkening injustice to of one of justice and light.

AMERICA's Violent Dinner.

African Americans have been cheated in every presidential election even before Emancipation Proclamation. But the complexity of justice in America in the eyes of the indigenous people and other marginalized communities is a story for another day. Let's look at the situation after Emancipation. The first senators who were elected in the South during reconstruction were booed during their first session in senate and that was the end their glory, at least politically. All that efforts to elect senators for the first time in the U.S had been a waste of emotions and energy. Yet another dream deferred and denied.

Following the presidential elections of 1896 between Rutherford B. Hayes and James Tilden, a 1877 Compromise was hatched between the Southern Democratic Party and the Republicans. Part of the agreement in the deal was that the Republicans would support the withdrawal of federal troops protecting freed slaves in the South.

What followed was probably the most repressive era against African Americans for over 80 years that followed.

An alliance between African Americans and the populist party in Wilmington saw African Americans win just about all the political seats.

The good Democrats gave those elected Black officials an ultimatum to either leave town or face violence and lynching. The African Americans read the handwriting on the wall and left town. Those who didn't were cought up in the Nov 1898 racist riots that left an estimated 300 African Americans dead and their homes and businesses torched.

Some people think that the American all time play, the Wizard of Oz, was an allegory of that gilded age.

So those saying that Trump is shaming American should realize that what they are saying is that a coup happens only to wealthy White people. American political system is just showing it's colors. Native Americans, poor Whites and Immigrants have equally suffered for being outside the mainstream politics.

Those groups of people will read from different script. The current political crisis is an appetizer, the the other three courses are already been served.

Ask us and please don't act surprised. Trump was true Wizard. Many just did ’t what kind of Wizard he was. Many of us didn't only know, but we know exactly what were expecting to see happen.

I hope that the current coup will be an equal opportunity victimizer and eventually a beneficiary. Like cowardly lion in Wizard of Oz we wish Americans courage to open their eyes. African Americans have an equal dose of learning to do. We have understand how the political game is played.

Voting only is not going to the trick. We have been voting all along and we are still lagging behind. Since Southern Democrts get reelected more often, they hold more chairmanship in the critical committees, the racist attitudes of south are still reflected in the national policy.

For good measure, we could add the story of food about the most beloved chef for the first president of U.S, George Washington, named Hercules Posey. Whoever named Hercules, must have consulted the oracles for his life needed Herculean strength. After doing a steller job for the first family, the dapper enslaved chef had to ran away as fugitive slave, leaving his three children behind. Even the chef could not get justice in return for his work.

We need that courage to act differently towards each other and demand the same from the governments if we are party to. Otherwise our coup will have succeeded. In that case African Americans will keep getting democratic apetizers while whites enjoys the whole course. Courage, O Courage, unspeakable American Courage to serve democracy equally is the only solution. We can't ask if America will ever learn. America is the quintessential learner. The question is what grade we can expect.

DECOLONIZING BOXING DAY

On Boxing day of this year, I thought hard about the state of Black Food. Then an idea came to me to that I could potentially use the creativity of artists to help solve this critical issue. If there is one artist whom I think would be most qualified for that purpose, it is Dean Hutton. My pick of Dean Hutton follows her victory, or rather of her installation at a gallery in Western Cape. Back in July of 2017 newspapers all over the world carried a story about an unusual case about a ruling by the South Africa magistrate DM Thulare. In his ruling, Thulale ruled  that the words “fuck white people” were neither racist nor hate speech. The case had been brought against a south African gallery that had displayed the work of Dean Hutton which bore the above words. The suit had been filed by Cape Party,  a white separatist group that aimed at making Western Cape a separate republic.

It is important to mention that Dean Hutton, who is herself white had placed a notice next to the installation that explained that the purpose of the exhibition was aimed at getting White people to face their privileged position in society.  I had been following the case for a while and like many, I was curious about what the final judgement would be. Well, it did finally come and it was not what I had expected. 

The White South African Govt passed numerous laws to keep supposedly superior Whites from sleeping with Africans. They officially said that Africans can't fuck White people, end of the story. Those laws were in the books for about 67 years. At some point the law was upgraded through the passage of  Immorality Act following doubts on the effectiveness of the less stringent Mixed Marriage Act. The Mixed Marriage Act appeared to have the obvious loop hole of having people just fuck without the cumbersome process of marriage, a process that did not offer any more pleasure to the process except some of the headaches we witness in some cases today whenever separation becomes necessary.

The anxiety of preserving purity was not only against Blacks, even Indians were not spared. After many whites started getting employed by Indians, this seemed to offer the Indians an unfair competitive advantage in access to White women. So a law was passed against white women working for Indians too. That is how Dean Hutton got the idea to challenge the crazy laws. 

 My immediate question followig the judgement was if it would have been any different if the words were fuck Black people. It did not take me long to realize just how just how unnecessary such a statement would be since the very power that Dean Hutton was trying to get white people to question exponentially disadvantages Africans in serious ways. One such way is damaging their food culture. What would be an equivalent provocative statement then would be “fuck Black self-hate”. Such a statement would naturally be accompanied with a statement that explains that the aim of the statement is to examine how self-hate has contributed to the  suffering and diminishing Black people’s ability to empower their declining food culture and by extension, themselves.  

To be fair, I will be the first to admit that such a statement would not elicit the same kind of emotional reaction from people intended as the primary audience for many reasons. But that should not deter me from at least trying. It is a painful situation to be in a position where you are bombarded with actions, words and deeds that one knows very will can only lead to backward results. When it comes to traditional and indigenious food, the trend is that that food has been put in a box that is labelled inferior. It is a mind boggling idea for anyone who has not either experienced that food racism or noticed it. 

When I was growing up there were two words that were thrown around if reference to chicken that clearly demonstrates this malaise.  I grew up most of my life knowing that there was only one type of chicken. That meant that there was no need to distinguish one chicken from the next, all chickens were, well, chickens. 

But then a negative evolution happened right before our eyes without much notice. Packaged as advancement and progress, a new type of chicken was introduced. It had all the qualities that would naturally entice both the farmer and the buyer. In this case, the buyer in question was obviously assumed to be the sophisticated urban customer. It is amazing looking back that given the subsistence farming that was conducted in my village, the food was mainly grown for the cities and other countries. That meant that the power imbalance between those who worked and those who benefited from the labour dictated that the views of the farmers were equally biased against the village farmers. 

The newly introduced chicken did not only come to improve the market and the fortunes of the farmer and the buyer but had other ominous consequences. First and foremost, the relationship between the farmer and the buyer was so unequal as to jeopardize the viability of the long term existence of the farmers. Those intended as the market had so much power and influence over the lives of the farmer that at some point, the farmers ability to supply the demands of the market ends up consuming the farmer. The city and foreign buyers had so much that the farmer needed but the farmer only had two things that the market needed, that is his labour and his produce. The farmer’s own children were being prepared, not to farm, but to fit in the new culture of the urban and foreing dweller. Most of the born in the previous generation and in mine are mostly in urban and foreing countries. 

That imbalance can be best seen in the manner or results of the introduction of a new breed of chicken. The new chicken was celebrated as an agricultural breakthrough. The chicken grew much quicker and that meant more to the farmer. But the farmer was not sophisticated enough to do the deep math of the true cost of the chicken innovation. The chicken was therefore called “ngirigaca” the vernacular version of the word agriculture.

The traditional chicken could not possibly be unaffected by this new development. Unfortunately, the new term for the chicken exposed the unequal relationship between them and the new and the old order. The old chicken got the short end of the stick, just as in all other areas of interaction. A word that was borrowed from the swahili came to the rescue. Shenzi is an swahili word for that denotes something backward, stupid or ignorant. Our people therefore domesticated into

“Gicenji”.  It was hence the term that became the accepted term for referring to the traditional free-range chickens. Along the same lines, it is an accepted saying to use the term eating white as an indication of eating a balanced diet or a superior manner. 

Things stayed that way for a long time. The broiler chicken reigned in the market.  A stroll in town is all one needs to do to confirm that dominance. There are numerous eateries around the capital city’s downtown area as well as other highly populated urban areas where the broiler chickens are roasted in big rotisserie machines. They are the default chickens that are consumed by the urban and sophisticated urban masses. But those chickens were rarely consumed in the village when I was coming up. Those folks in the village ate the same chicken that they had given derogatory names. In the end, the healthier chicken still ended up causing a disease of the culture. That disease is called self-hatred and it has gone a long way in emasculating the spirit and ultimately the health of the country.  That was then, now we have the foreign powers coming in droves to cash in on the dominated and emasculated culture.

Foreign food companies are now taking over the local broilers chickens. KFC and Burger King can be spotted across the city and at the most popular eateries. Our cultural foods have now been put in a box with a big stamp on it that says “yakeee”. Yummy is for the foods of the winners. Ironically, the yakey foods are mostly available in joints whose byword in the U.S is whole paycheck. That is the reason why I saying fuck Black people will not be all too necessary, they are eating it.  Our food culture is not only in a box but it is in an upside down box. Those suffering from white privilege think that white food is healthier than their own but everywhere that privileged food gets introduced, the people suffer. Now China has half of its population is obese. 

So what does Boxing day represent? I would say a boxing match where our food is facing heavy punches enough to fuck our health and our existence, all while thinking that all is yummy with our lives. Our cultural crisis is turning us into a second-hand people. Decolonize that and stave off a gigantic crisis that is looming on the horizon.

SEcularizaTION of a not so sacred holiday

It is Christmas today for most places in the world. But it's also the end of year and a day mandated as a holiday in most countries with a significant Christian population. For those indigenous souls still struggling to breath under the yoke of domination by unjustice vampire cultures whose ultimate goal is the creation of a global empire culture at the expense of the multitude of diverses . Nothing can be more unsustainable than that.

Just as the growing of monoculture groups is deleterious to food sustainability, monoculture can potentially be even worse. Empiricism is a cultural misadventure with the ability of accelerating global crisis quicker than anything else I know. I am speaking here in the context of man's capacity to use technology to bring about mass extinction of whole world.

This is not the easiest story to share but it's the honest dose that brings about justice. After all, each cultural survival is the primary result of that culture. One culture can't and shouldn't sacrife itself solely for the sake of another culture. To ask of that is to engage in robbery with violence.

Here is the back story.

Europe was engaged in a similar battle over the sectarian struggle for domination by the many religious sect as far back as the founding of Christianity. That struggle has been everything else but peaceful. The best example to use an an illustration is a gnostic group that started in Languedoc,France known as the Cathars between 12th to 14th century. I obviously chose the group because amongst other interesting things, the adherents were vegetarians and created their own rules and culture. Secondly, the group's ideology had been influenced by Armenians. As fate would have it, the massacres of the Armenians in modern day Turkey 700 years later would give us the word genocide. The word was first coined in early 1920s to describe the mass killing of Armenians for political reasons.

The cathars were constructed to be a threat to the domination of the Catholic church. Like many other sects that existed then and before, there was bound to be a struggle for power. In the end, a final solution was hatched by pope. He ordered the massacre of all the people living in areas that were predominately Cathars. But things were not that easy.

There was a slight problem when those sent to carry out the orders paused for enquire how they would distinguish the Cathars from the Catholics living in those areas, considering that the Cathars were a very tolerant group. The pope was reported to have infamously ordered the killing of people and let God choose his own from the dead. What more can show the kind of cultural hubris and arrogance of an organization deemed to be the source and center of the sacred by billions?

Around the same time the Carthars were being massacred the Arabs had already estabished the enslavement of Africans as a trade but largely restricted to the costal regions of Africa. By the 13th and 14th centuries, Christians made inroads into the interior in search of wealth but also winning souls for their deity. Unlike Europe, the debate and consequent struggle did not last for long. At least not in any scale that necessitated the kind of massacre that marked the many sects that tried to live outside the controling influence of the pope. However the longterm acquiescence of my indigenous communities have very similar outcomes to those of the old gnostic sects.

African cultures have become subservient to the cultures of the empire builders. Oppression I always say is essentially a form of alienation. Economic oppression is the alienation from one's labour. Political oppression is the alienation from self-government. Cultural oppression is the alienation of one's culture. In that light, to call the end of year Christmas is great for those benefiting from empire-building but bad for everyone else.

Recognizing that on the part of those interested in correcting historical injustices is a good first step of halting the rollers that are keeping thier knees of the African and other indigenous culture. As it is, those cultures are not breathing. That is evident in the increased alienation amongst many African cultures. I am a witness of such incidents in my own culture.

The more these religions and political ideologies take root, the more alienated my people and country become. If accepting these cultural domination is the panacea of progress, my community stands as a stark proof to the contrary. Simple things that these people could do such as self-government and cultural vibrancy or on a roller coaster headed in opposite direction where almost all the community would chose to be headed. That explains neocolonialism and why my responsibility to those who have resisted this elienation is my own act of civil obedience to my indigenous sensibilities. Civic disobedience is for tomorrow. Today I stake my hopes in my indigenous heart. Tomorrow the same heart will examine the box my culture is in.

Turning pink memories into black gold

As a young boy in the village known as Jumbi, I have vague memories of a small pink card that made my mother smile like I had never seen her smile. Anyone who knew my mother would be taken aback by such a herculean task knowing just how easy it was for my mother to smile. She was both a comedian and an accomplished smiler, if ever there was such a thing. 

This was around October in 1973 and my mother had just returned from the annual national Agricultural Show helded in the capital city of Nairobi. In those days, it took a whole day and then some just to cover the 72 mile distance in the only bus that travelled the route.  I remember my mother waking everybody up on the day she was traveling. I could not remember my family waking up earlier than that before. One of my brothers had to take some of the food bags to the road and keep watch, other members of the family had to warm up some food and help package it to send with  my mother and her friends who were accompanying her to the city. Other members had to help start the fire to warm the water and milk the cow, so that my mother could take some fresh milk for  a family in the city. It was a hectic morning. 

The bus could be heard from miles away. In a silent village such as ours, young children could recognize a vehicle from miles off, just from its horn or sound of the engine. There were so few cars in the whole region that young people would memorize all the number plates, make and model of all the vehicles within a ten to fifteen mile radius. It was such a big affair for a village member to go to Nairobi that my brother had been dispatched to some of the neighboring families to alert them that my mother would be traveling. It was an opportunity for those family members and neighbors to send letters or messages to their relatives in the city. Such an announcement also brought its own demands. Some family members who were not literate would ask the literate members of the community to write letters on their behalf. Such occurrences were followed by a hefty evening of gossip, as those literate members of the community would now know some of the problems that were going on at a domestic level. 

Once the bus was within an earshot, the whole family accompanied my mother to the road and waited for the bus to arrive.The bus arrived and the family helped the bus attendant to load the bags of food destined for the city.  I later learned that the bus driver would drive for about 15 miles and decide that he was too tired to drive. He would park the bus at the next shopping center and then walk into a bar and order himself a few rounds of beer, all while the travelers waited patiently in the bus. The driver of a bus was a very important person and a celebrity in the village in those days. Whenever we would play with other children, it was not unusual for some of us to impersonate the characters of bus drivers. Movie stars and celebrities were very local in those days; nowadays American celebrities are household names even in the village . No one would dare question the driver, lest he get upset and throw the keys at them and demand that they drive themselves to their destination. Luckily, the travelers were mostly people who knew each other very well and had loads of food to eat. It was a great opportunity for folks to catch up with each other. 

When I came to the U.S and got quite familiar with the concept of vacation, I wondered why people in my village never took any time to go on vacation. I am now more familiar with the whole cultural difference but if I did not know better, I could use the experience of travel as an example of how small things could have the same value as taking a long excursion to some remote place. Consider for a moment that the same driver who would take two hours breaks would return to the bus and to the cheers of the same passengers who had been waiting patiently. It was not uncommon for the passengers to sing songs of praise for the driver. Whenever the bus would come to a bridge, the passengers would alight and then allow the kamikaze driver to risk his own life by driving the bus across a bridge whose viability was questionable.

But the most famous spot on the whole journey was Kanjama. It was the steepest hill in the region. The spot has been immortalized in famous songs by the biggest musical legend from the region. The was little doubt that whoever was asleep was would be woken up by others seating nearby. The whole climb of the hill was a spectacle. Each bus had a garget, sometimes as simple as a rock that was carried in the bus. The bus attend would get out of the bus at the bottom of the hill and follow the bus as it went up the hill. If the bus just paused a bit as the driver was chaining the gears, the bus attendant would place the rock behind the back tire to keep the bus from rolling backwards. The passengers would be busy singing at full throttle, mostly encouraging the driver and his attendant to deliver the multitude from the tribulation at hand. It was a time of great joy whenever the bus made it to the top of the hill. Many would have sworn that the driver was the best driver that ever lived. From there, it was smooth sailing to what the locals called “Kiamatawa” or literally the place of light. It was called that as it was the only place with electricity and street lights.

I would imagine that the trip back could not have been any different. The hill that made the toughest spot on the first leg of the trip would still be a nightmare on the return leg. More accidents had happened on the downhill drive than uphill drive.

My mother was gone for a few days and must have attended the whole agricultural show over the four days. She also spent a few days with my father, who had a business in the city. Upon her return, she brought many goodies from the city, the favorite of children my age being biscuits. I was too preoccupied with eating the biscuits and playing with a toy of a wooden carving of a Maasai warrior to pay attention to much else. Now that I think about it, jumping up and down is a universal way of celebration. “Ouch” is the universal language mishap.

From all the activities that were going on I still managed to gather that my mother was most excited about a small pink card. The whole family huddled together as one of my sisters read the message it carried. You could have thought that she was a judge reading out the judgement for a capital offense. Whatever, the verdict, it could not have been that bad. Everyone was overjoyed to the point of jumping up and down just like the Maasai people do in their dance. The idea of hugs had not yet been incorporated into the culture in our village. But, my mother was the one who appeared to be most joyous. 

I was not in the least bothered with the festive family. I was busy enjoying biscuits and candy that my mother had bought for her youngest son. My mother walked into the house with the card she had been holding and filed it somewhere. When she returned, she entertained the family with the adventures of the trip and updates about my father. Then the next day started just like any other and that was the last I have ever heard about the trip or the pink card. That is until this year when my oldest sister sent me a picture of the card below. I could not believe my eyes. It was the pink card from back in 1973 and it clearly indicated that my mother had won first place in a national competition at the Agricultural show of Kenya for being the best farmer in a particular class.  Like a stream of a mighty river, my memories went back into the recess of my mind and brought back the memories of the card. 

It occurred to me that farming is not just something I like to do but it is something in my blood. As I close one of the toughest years of my life. I am glad to announce that I am opening the Thayu Food Literacy & Sustainability Centre at one of my mother’s farms. IShe might not have been literate about books, but she was literate about food. That is the message that will be advanced by the center. The food that will be grown and the message that will be carried  will be about a profit to the soul and the food system. I am carrying on her legacy and turning my memories of the pink card, and what it represented to her into black for profit.  Black is the signifying color for profit. It is probably the few positive references of the color black. Our goal is to make the small Food Literacy & Sustainability Centre  a positive force for the community and broader world through its impact. Our focus is food as a medium  for liberation, sustainability and empowerment. Join us and find out how you can be part of our mission.

On my Spotlight Amongst Black chefs

Thanks to BcaGlobal team and chef Alex Askew for having nominated me as the featured chef for this year's BCAGlobal Conference. It was an emotional day as it also happened to be the day Kenya gained it's independence from the British back in 1963. Equally important, it was my second daughter's 12th birthday. It was amazing to me to be speaking to long list of top African American chefs with all types of accomplishments. I am humbled by the work that many African Americans chefs have done in the past to make this possible for us to do what we do today. The work that many visionaries and forward thinking activists continue to can never be overstated. It was encouraging to see Akua Amefia, a Togolese woman food scientist amongst the presenting today. It's not fun always being one of a handful or even the only African in many such forums. I can go on and on but I will be brief today because a picture is worth a thousand words. Before speaking, a family member surprised me with a photo I had never seen It was a photo my oldest sister and myself at the age of 4. The photo was taken at my ancestral home. That is where the foundations of my interest in food can be traced. When my oldest sister was 4, they were living in a colonial concentration camp that had been created to deny the freedom fighters waging a war against the British from the nearby forest from access to food. Keeping all the villagers in a camp that was locked up at night meant limit control on their movements. During that same time, my father was in the British Gulag where hadcore men and women were detained for their involvement in the frredom struggle. I grew up serenaded by stories of revolutionary valor amongst our people. I hanged around some of these men. Unfortunately, their chilvary and code of honor restricted them from devulging the inner working of their organization. I still benefited tremendously from hanging around them and watching them navigate a new country whose nature they knew little about. Stories of battles fought and challanges were freely shared. They songs were invaluable part of those stories. Whenever I get any spotlight, I always start or end by acknowledging the many who have always taken a strong stand in the past. It's on their shoulders that I stand and on their principled stand that provide me with the courage to continue, even when doubt and doubting allies cast their dark shadow on this narrow path.

No Elections without justice

The next week might turn out to be the most pivotal week since the Second European War. That was probably the last time so much blood was spilled for no reason other that hatred and ignorance. Whatever the outcome of the U.S presidential elections will be, one thing is for sure. The lies of a democratic state are coming to a head. The hypocrisy of justice and liberty will be laid bare. Oligarchy is what America has been trending towards. A presidential election between to oligarchs is a sham elections. What will be at the ballot is if the sham system has any fire power left. The decision will be made on the backs of the most vulnerable.

There is palpable pain and agony from those whose children have been put in cages; those who are descendants of enslaved Africans who have long been waiting to be full citizens and to enjoy some benefits from the labor of their forefathers; those shot by police while unarmed; those who have lost their jobs because of government policy that favors corporations that are downsizing to increase capital; those who are facing violence as they cross borders illegally after loosing their markets to subsidized American agriculturalproducts; those drowning in oceans and seas escaping failed countries that have instituted World Bank policies that cripple the local economies; those illegal immigrants picking our food but have no gainful employment or job security due to government policy, those who have lost their businesses to looting, mounting debt and regressive taxes that allows supposed billionaire to get away with paying only $750 in taxes.

Karl Marx started his seminal work, The Communist Manifesto, with the observation that the history of all societies is one of class struggle. Yet there is a lot to said about the person he considered his number one hero: general Spartacus. Spartacus was the most famous general who led a slave rebellion against Rome and its slave economy. He won 9 battles against General Cassius and Pompey. On his last stand, when he realized that he was about to lose, he ordered his horse killed so that he could in the same rank with everybody else. His main focus shifted to laying his hands on General Crassus and General Pompeii in order to fight them one on one.

That was then. Now we all need to get on horses and fight for justice and against exploitation and ignorance. Democracy as we have it today has failed so many. The Democrats failed the country and that gave the Republicans an opening they exploited. The Republicans were especially unified in their fight against Obama. That was all any keen observer needed to see. President Obama wasn't radical in any major way but still that wasn't good enough for the Republicans.

The hate we are seeing has deep roots. It has been postponed for years. The final day for dealing with the long delayed issues is now at hand. Electing someone to continue with the same unjust system that has caused all the divisions won't solve the problem. If we don't do what is fair, unlike general Spartacus, we should spare the horse and go for each other’s throats. If we can live justly, we will just perish.

Injustice is a major cause of war and division. This arc of history is being bent towards illegitimate power. Those with power will use hate, color, sex and finally ideology to manipulate those without power so as to perpetuate the same o sameo. Don't fall for tricks. We are all finally at our own Mt. Vesuvius where Sparticus started his war.

Homage to a poet's Goodness & Blackness

You know you are getting old when you see more and more people you have worked with in the past doing bigger and bigger things. I first met CJ Suitt about seven years ago through his fellow poet and buddy Kane D Smego. I had helped raise a few dollars for their trip to Egypt during the Arab Spring. 

We did a small dinner in my living room and then sat back as the poets treated us to a jam session of hit after hit of slam poetry. One of Kane's poems was about the Greensboro sit-ins by the students which would thrust the Civil Rights Movement into national limelight.

We graduated into doing dinners at bigger locations and to bigger crowds. Both Kane and CJ entertained my guests at The Palace, the popular Kenyan joint, on various occasions.  Kane showed up at one of my most anticipated dinners in Durham when I hosted the legendary Will Allen.  I was so thrilled when Kane repeated the poem about the Greensboro Sit-ins. I couldn't have asked for a better backdrop for the poem. The event was full capacity with some guests eating from the bar table. Some guests had crashed the party with a group of young men from a nearby rural town ( I can't remember the town).

A few local non-profits like Reinvestment Partners had supported the dinner by contributing some money. Three non-profits gave funds but only two were able to attend. Those that were not able to make it helped to pay for the tickets of the young men and a few adults. In other words, they allowed me to put on the show that I wanted and not the one that the guests had paid for.

Corporations such as Burt's Bees also removed their checkbooks in support of the event. To make things even better, they also bought a few extra tickets. The funny part is that the folks from Burt's Bees showed up a few minutes late only to find out that the only seats left were at the bar, out of politeness and for better view, they opted to stand when Will Allen and the poetry started. My friend Teli Shabu played the melodic Kora like there was no tomorrow.

My local favorite artist Keith McLaurin, brought two paintings as gifts for our main guest and one for the chef.

A friend who couldn't make it because of babysitting issues bought 5 tickets at $100. The contributions and collaborative energy was unrivaled.  Seeds, a Durham non-profit teaching urban farming to high school youth offered a group of six young farmers as sous chefs for the evening.  The energy was on fever pitch.

The energy from the guests was just as invigorating.  Brother Yowcep Webb, Roxanne L London and a Russian family that was attending Duke Phd program also showed. Erin White a long time comrade in the food movement, especially in the field of architecture and design was present. My former dean at my culinary school also attended my dinner for the first time that night. Maurice Small kept Will Allen's crew entertained.  The list was long but the space between guests was absent.  Karen Ochola's, the owner of The Palace, hospitality was obvious.

What was less obvious except to Will Allen, Mauric Smalls and some staff members, the non-profit that had invited Will Allen to the Triangle for a weekend workshop, was the ugly war of words that had marked the preparation for the dinner. She felt that Will had no right to attend a dinner while under a contract with them. I politely reminded her, through her staff, that I was not privy to the contract and that my discussion with Mr. Allen was independent of anyone else. I continued to clarify that I wasn't aware of any requirement for me to check in with them before talking to anyone else outside the company. It would be rude really to ask anyone I talk to who they had contracts with before engaging with them.

In the end cool heads prevailed, the dinner took place and we had a ball.

Whenever you see artists and activists getting recognition, it doesn't come on a silver plate. But how it comes is never an issue. The issues which are so easy to get blurred by the fake glitter of recognition is what the struggle aims to achieve.  No amount of recognition can change that. Either way, I am happy for CJ but more for the good that might come out of the appointment. 

In the meantime, I will be calling CJ tomorrow to discuss the possibility of yet another dinner. I wonder who else I will need to call to ask for permission to talk to this grand poet, whose poems  really quench my thirst for the Goodness in Blackness!