Lot’s wife.
Dont look back. She was told. Yet she chose to. She couldn’t let go. She loved that place and she was emotionally tied to it. Yet, there was a future that was promised. To free her from the sins of the city, and all of its vortex, that was consuming their souls into a black hole of hedonism. She chose to look back and she got cast into a statue of salt.
Do not collect your life’s mistakes. Nor the mistakes of your ancestors. Let go. And let go of the bitterness of the past. And the yoke of generational bitterness. Let go of that also. Burn it.
We have been fighting. Tribe against tribe. Black man vs black man. Yet our histories are interlinked. We are the same people. And our bonds meet at some point if we follow our combined and common ancestry.
Perpetuation of black on black hatred. Nothing that moves us forward as a people. We carry these scars from the past that we revisit to create mass hysteria and inhibit our societal progression.
The politics hold us back. Scars from 1652, 1823, 1887, and 1896 and 1930, and 1948 and later in 1983-87 continue to haunt us and the emotional violence continues unabated, generationally, and occasionally revisited to cast tribe against tribe. And here you are, in 2020. Seething.
Yet we remain black and poor, and those with political power live their lives of luxury with no care. And they die blissfully in old age, their sins unatoned for, and they receive state sponsored funerals that we pay for through our taxes. And they leave us bitter people, looking back in anger.
Yet, we the masses across tribal lines still hold each other in disgust. We disguise our hatred and call each other all sorts of denigrating names, and we whisper in our corners and in the shadows, with our friends whom we think are of the same ilk.
Your name is your name, and there is nothing you can do to change that. You can hate another name, or another surname, but that person was born into that name, and they had no choice. The hatred you bear for that name doesnt help you or grow you. Uzofuthelana and remember past sins of each other’s ancestors. And you boil.
But you will still be black, the both of you. Pots and kettles. Yet, you could forgive and forge a new relationship, for your future generations. And those future generations could have a different inheritance, than the one you had.
So today and tomorrow remain your choice, if you choose love, you have a better chance, of a better tomorrow. For your name and any other name.
You are not a kwerekwere. You are black and African, your ancestors know no other soil, and you carry their blood. Each one of you.
Find your bonds.
Unite.
May the 9th commandment be your guide, if you remain in doubt. It appears twice in the Hebrew Bible: at Exodus 20:2-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-17.
