Black Man Needs No Friends!
I greet you with the utmost humility, in the unconditional love of #BlackJesus and the unending wisdom of #BlackGenius. I cannot begin to tell what it is I am about to write because I myself I am not entirely sure. All I know is that it is a message that I have to relay in this exact moment in order to earn my sleep. I can, however, tell you what this is not!
To lay a solid foundation of my purest intentions, I should begin by saying that this piece is not a rant on race relations, just a message from the deepest parts of my subconscious.
I am writing this for the young black man who is struggling to find his place in this world.
#BlackJesus says “Tell him I love him”
I am currently on my fourth cigarette. Yes and I’m only in the first paragraph. I love smoking. It relaxes me. I should probably quit but we’ll get there. For now, let’s talk about LOVE. And when I say love, I do not mean the word. We hear this word almost every day and everywhere that its’ weight doesn’t quite live up to the ideals we’ve conjured up in our imaginations, all thanks to the romanticized practices we see in Hollywood movies. No. This love I speak of is intention.
I remember hearing my Godmother, Lauryn Hill sing “check your motives and thoughts…” which is an important anecdote for what I wish to relay to you.
I live in the township and while most of you reading this may start to assume that I will go into the many horrors associated with living in this place, you will find that I am taking a different path. The township, as I have known it, is full of life. Yes, many atrocities do occur around these parts but there is a layer of hope if you look deep enough beneath the malevolence.
The young black man I wish to speak to, calls the township home. “Ekasi lami, enkambin yam…” as they so eloquently put it. This is not a happy moment. I wish to start with where and when my concern for the young black man began manifesting.
As we all know, we are in the middle of a global crisis. The Covid-19 has fallen upon all nations, great and small, across the world and has claimed the many lives of its unsuspecting victims. Which brings me to how the South African Government has decided to react to this pandemic.
Remember when I confessed that I have an undying love for smoking? Yes. This is where it all began for me. Cigarettes were to be banned, and indeed they were. For those of you who smoke but do not live in the township, I am pretty sure this ensured a state of crisis. So here we are, in the second week of lockdown and my 3 packs of 20 ciggies were done. I had a few vaping devices but that is no good to someone who craves the warm and comforting bud of a ciggy. You may be surprised, as I was, to learn that this regulation of the lockdown had not only gone unheeded but rather triggered a new form of disaster for the young black man in the township.
Every morning, at around 6 or 7 am-ish, without fail, I wake up to the sounds of desperate young black men shouting from the street corner, “GWAI, GWAI, HAI uGWAI La…” which can be directly translated as cigarettes, cigarettes, come get your cigarettes over here.”
Now I’m sure you can imagine how little old me, a person who saw these dire circumstances as the perfect opportunity to finally quit smoking, felt confused. How is it that the honorable President Cyril Ramaphosa just announced that cigarettes were now an illegal item to sell, and yet young black men began to rush to corners and sell the lowest quality ciggies at exorbitant prices?
A cigarette that usually cost around 50 cents before the lockdown, is now being sold everywhere in the township for 5 Rand a pop. My concerns were not unwarranted because the people who sold these cigarettes are people that have earned the term “Nyaope boys” or whatever, it’s a term I really detest, but I had to write it so that you get the general image of the young black men who were now empowered with a new “entrepreneurial venture”
Speaking of things I hate, the adage goes: “God don’t like ugly..”
I won’t get too preachy but I would like to point out that when Jesus lived and walked on this here planet we call Earth. He did not hang out with the holier than thou church leaders who preach condemnation to those who forgot to dream. He was with the thieves and prostitutes and I bet on this over-priced cigarette that I am about to light, that if he had to be alive today; you’d probably find him with the so-called nyaopes.
Great, I’m smoking again. I don’t know…there’s just something about smoking and writing, although I must confess, this is turning into a rant about ciggies and that is far from my intention. Once again I want to talk about love.
I LOVE YOU BLACK MAN. I WANT YOU TO LIVE!
Seeing many of the people who look like me, standing at the street corners all day waiting to get arrested, hurts me. But you know somebody gotta sell these things because people like me need to smoke. But anyway, back to my love for my disenfranchised black brothers who are chasing that R20 profit on a box of cigs:
I am fortunate enough to be temporarily employed as an intern copywriter at a prestigious advertising agency. I have to say that, with a baby on the way and rent every month’s end, a stipend can only get you about one-quarter of the path I walk every month, so of course, I befriended one of these brave black men. DISCLAIMER: I needed to have one of them in my pocket in order to afford the privilege of getting these over-priced ciggies on credit.
I found one. It was the perfect arrangement. He lives next door. He seemingly respects me, for my assumed ostentatious appearance. Yes, I am the hip hop loving black boy who grew up in the burbs and rented a house in the township faster than you can say “Randburg flats are expensive” but anyway I digress. My lovely cigarette dealing compadre Benny from next door who occasionally slides me a few cigs on those particularly rough days. He is a kind soul. Bless him. I quickly realized that his older brother who shares the shack with him sold alcohol illegally. This was perfect. Lockdown for who? When I am here working from home in my underwear, drinking and smoking even more than I did before ‘the Rona’ hit us hard.
Unfortunately, my relationship with Benny gave me more than what I had bargained for. I thought it would be easy for me to play the role of a cheese boy who brought opulence to the hood and garners his trust but I quickly learned that Benny never needed a fake friend, he has plenty of those. My guess is that it was one of his many so-called friends that put him on to this new dangerous game of blatantly selling ciggies during the lockdown.
No. Benny did not need another friend with ill intentions. He needed a brother. My well-disguised approach was one that would allude to my love for black men like him and myself in these trying times.
Guys, Benny got arrested this morning and it was just last week that I was sleeping with my girlfriend when she woke me up to the horror of a man shouting and screaming next door before….GUNSHOT…silence!
Benny’s brother was shot last week Monday at about 1 am in the morning. I heard he is healing quite well in hospital but I believe it was a group of his so-called friends that plotted and invaded his shack to steal R4600 that he had made from selling alcohol. My heart bleeds for the young black man in the township.
Black Genius says “Tell him I need him”
Cards on the table? Cigarettes really suck. I am currently experiencing chest pain from tonight’s chain-smoking. So this is where I will put the cigarette down and proceed to speak truth to power with the wisdom of black genius.
Clearly, the motive and ambition to build a better life through an entrepreneurial spirit and early morning dedication do exist for the black man in the township. This is why quick money finds such fertile soil in the minds of these young black men. That’s why they would rather sell the ciggy than smoke it.
These gentlemen can count, negotiate, and work harmoniously together in order for all of them to reach profit and make their “dealer” or “supplier” happy? Why then have they not found more palatable ways to fund their own lives, even before the lockdown? Why do they seem so broken and hopeless to the holier than thou onlookers who call them nyaopes? What is the problem here? Is it the drugs? I suspect it’s the company they keep.
Listen, not all black men are kind-hearted and full of mercy like Benny. Some of them have grown bitter from the crowded shacks they live in. Some of them have knives and guns and do unspeakable things while the rest of us slumber and sleep. This is why Benny’s actual brother had the fated fall upon him. Shot in the leg by men who knew him and (make no mistake) tried to kill him that night.
I am fortunate. Not because of material things like the Macbook Pro laptop that I am typing this on, but by the grace of God that I am still able to dream. And as I have learned, if you pray long enough, God will hear the desires of your heart and your dreams will come true. As so did mine.
I had friends once. In varsity and that did not end well for my ambitions. Friends talk behind your back. Friends will be jealous of your future. But brothers will help you get closer to your dreams. Friends prey on your weakness and brothers pray for your strength. The difference is succinct.
Now I have many brothers. Many of whom I tried to uplift by including them in my plans to take over the world but unfortunately, my brothers have friends. Friends who did not take a liking to my being a positive influence on their mule.
Would you believe me if I told you that this is spiritual warfare? What if I told you that I have encountered people who proclaim themselves as being part of a secret mason society who use witchcraft to create barriers between many brothers and their ability to dream? That too deep? Alright, I’ll stop. All I wish is to echo Steve Biko’s sentiment that “BLACK MAN, YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN.”
It might not seem like it, but many young, talented black men in the township need our prayers because they are fighting to not be invisible. I have learned that the next Benny I meet, I will approach with caution but with the intention to love because Lord knows we could all use a brother in these last days of the revelation prophecy.
P.S. This post would have been way longer and maybe more interesting if I had some weed to go with it. I jest. I’m happy that you read this but even more glad that now I get to sleep. Peace to the planet and may God bless the young black men.
