Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Says light to darkness, I see best through you! We have not been creative enough against racism, Pope Francis agrees

     Nightbird is hovering around the Cologne Cathedral, in Germany. She had seen it before in spectacular lighting.  It is in darkness now. The lights are switched off to protest against a protest. Don't say you could not be there...

Were you here for holidays?

        Entrance exam to reading this...
Anne Braden a topmost activist against racism died on 06, March 2006. She left an institution for education against discrimination. Please write and tell me who is the face of anti racism in the world today, or the faces. Are they all the same color? Which news media owns this as a subject in the world? Who tweets about it most before and between and after the deaths of Benjamin Hermansen of Norway and Mike Brown of Missouri, U.S.A?
Please don't tell me over there it is still Mahatma Gandhi. And least of all, don't let me hear again that Dr. Martin Luther King would cry if he ROSE from the DEAD today. Where are your tears? And... and... and... why after all those presidents since the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s would you like to pack this neatly on Obama's in tray?

 Things you can do about discrimination around you today, racial or otherwise:

A) Accept it exists. Call it by name. Don't be afraid of it
One thing you might want to do with others
                A( Read the history of racism in the world
                 B) Tell someone how it harms the perpetrator and why we all need to act against it especially economically, in employment and education.      
Carter C Woodson begins Black history week in
the U.S.A in . Curtesy of Wikipedia ( donate to Wikipedia. I am not employed there
...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_History_Month


Those in Germany are using light and darkness to protest those protesting against immigrants based on Islamophobia. 

Lights went off and on in Germany so that people can see. In most places Nightbird has been, she cared cared for the moon and the sun, the stars, the ecosystem. There is room for everyone. Our lives ensconced is in the universe. Look.

"In the horizon, the moon rises gently. Fist she gleams her soft rays. When her powerful rays strike the ground, rings of hope rise into the air. The moon is fully visible now." Still Sings the Nightbird, by Philo Ikonya 

Nightbird is thinking hard. How all this comes to hit all weak points in us including inviting racism. We are not in an easy place. Therefore it is important to keep flying and talking.

Nightbird flies to Mahatma Gandhi. He suffered discrimination in South Africa, particularly. He was thrown off a train. When Nightbird first read that, she never slept a wink again. She was horrified by the evil done. Gandhi hypnotized her.

He said he was a Christian, a Muslim, a Hindu, and himself all in one. Some people got rather angry. He had weaknesses. He had much moral strength. Has the idea that somewhere in the east life is more like sunrise for nights are varied days of wisdom. 

Nightbird met the owls of questioning status quo in the womb of her mother. Her grandmother, barefoot like no other, had left many question marks in her mother's womb. She sucked them. She learned to read and swallowed Up from Slavery Booker T. Washington's book, later in life. Read again. 

There are copyright rules on Wikipedia. They include that you can use the links anywhere but you must acknowledge them. Nightbird checked that at night.

She read more. There was a poet and teacher in Kenya. She found his words. Kimaathi wa Wachiuri. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedan_Kimathi
Nightbird is looking for the remains of this poet and teacher whom the British hanged in Kenya's colonial days. Hanged? No. Executed. He went singing love in poetic stanzas Kimaathi wa Wachiuri. He too was himself, a traditional man, a modern man, a Christian man, himself again, and a fighter for justice and peace;  in war,  peace. Why do humans have to agitate for justice, peace? Can't it be there just like the air?


Nightbird thinks hard. There must be those who cannot see it any other way. Nightbird thinks, well, sometimes one has to turn off lights to see. 

She tweets to her soul...@PhiloWriting...#StopIslamophobia. What are the risks? She adds #Stophomophobia #Stoptribalism #Stopnepotism#Stopracism. She trembles on big words and a new found branch called hashtree..hash tag# She is #chirrupy #todayandalways. She hears a friend call her out... 
#Kerengende! That is a dragonfly in Kiswahili. +Linda Cracknell 
Some lights are from so far. Some nights are so long.

She remembers when she used to ride freely on grasshoppers in villagers where nobody spoke her language. She was free. But now she speaks Latin if she wants to. Everyone is going back to their root language. 

Arabic and Latin are in vogue. She takes refuge in singing, avoiding war cries. War songs. She remembers that languages are free, free but dangerous bridges. She remembers people lost their lives in Kenya and elsewhere for not knowing how to answer in a verse from, from.... out of ... a Holy Book!

Other darkness has been on in the light. "Go home!" They yell at all immigrants. At home they yell too at one another. 
Nightbird was in the London underground, she who never felt at home in England. Never. She was only there because her plane landed there and she ventured out. 
Her first greeting was from a man. It should not be written down here because it perpetuates hate of a people because of where they come from. 

But Herstory becomes unfair so let her say something close... She was told ... "I hate... ... People... Especially the ones from ...are you from Jamaica?" She laughed actually. She had only asked for Westminster Abbey. What answer could she give? In those early 90s days it was not possible to ring up cops for that and if it was, she had no idea. Luckily the menacing man had no gun. Everyone she told of her panic both in London and in the world answered that was a mad man. She always retorted and snorted. Mad?

But fast forward to 2014. Mad? Guns and men. Mad still? Colors and blood, mad? Apes? Bananas? Monkeys.

Nightbird has perched on a branch. There is a tree in the London Underground. She read lines of poems by poets from different lands or if from the UK from different stocks. She felt better and she sang. She sang online and on the phone. 

Guess who answered her. Christine De Luca. He poem on turning 60... the bird twitters on a branch.  I was balancing lines. After the Scottish referendum, and because of blogging... I love this, I found her poem The Morning After...As for Scotland, may it be so for all lands. ... She is the Makar of Edinburgh...Poem here. http://www.cityofliterature.com/the-literary-city/meet/meet-the-makar/word-christine-de-luca/morning-christine-de-luca/

A hundred years are not over since Nazi times. The Fuhrer of Germany, Hitler. 1933. It is 82 Years ago but still now. There are those who are saying Gegen Nazi, Against Nazi... but others are not. They are pro Nazi... they do not want foreigners. 


Nightbird notes they do not see the foreigner in themselves. We all have one inside us so what are we running away from she wonders. She sings ruefully but she has been thoughtful for a long, long time. Create.

Ultimately, nothing can resist creativity. Nothing. Not even faith, for it came of it, dogmatic or not. Pope Francis has been rather frank. He was a good Fr. Christmas 2013. He brought with him live coal goodies for the Roman Curia stiff -boned cardinals. He told them that we are chocking on our own errors but looking for terrors out there in others' eyes.

He told them to own up to their terrorism. Philomena is a movie, just one little piece. There has been serious betrayal in religious circles. Abuse too. But we have been pointing at somebody else. Nightbird had seen Pope Francis washing  the feet of a Muslim girl in prison. Meaning?

Nightbird heard told and retold the story of Mehmet Ali Agca in 1982. John Paul II forgave him who wanted to dispatch him faster to his place subito before he could say subito!


Before all this came to mind and happened, there was one thought nagging Nightbird. Creativity has failed in addressing racism. It is not a color thing on its own though it hides there. It is a fear although it escapes there... It is in glances although it might be imagined there. In figures it is palpable. There is a scarecrow shouting at Nightbird.

"Don't you dare say it is only white to black!" But Nightbird knows about both Blackbird and Whitebird. Morning has broken!

Night has healed!

It was not enough for someone to note that Black presence was being left out of history and start a Black History Month in the U.S.A. I wish slavery had lasted only for a week, and its consequences obliterated forever. But that remains a wish.
Slavery might be the biggest motivator for dark color stereotyping, also in Asia. May be so. But if you do not think so, find something to think about it.

In centuries that have blown the mind in technology and other advancements, we have been slow to open up. Children in Germany, heard of one recently, are still asking if a dark color person is a monkey. I mean toddlers. Pointing at them in buses. And the parents are professionals...'educated'? They know the animals from around the world pretty well. Panda, rhino, buffalo, elephant, giraffe... and more..not to mention the canines and cat families.

21.01.2009 Children in Kogelo the birthplace of Obama's father read from
The Kenyan Boy who Became President of America. Kogelo is near Kisumu
© Linda Cracknell

Well, in Australia, a 13 year old called Adam Goodes, an ape. She never saw an apes football team? But racism, has been the rave ... football and racism. This discussion should be over. 
How on earth, name calling and all!? 

There must be ways of introducing people of different types to children. We are not even going to mention dolls. 
Everywhere I go, in Europe they talk of Black History Month or Week. Where as Carter G. Woodson and others started this, it is ridiculous in the first place that it HAD to be started in order to be ... started!

Everytime I read books, there is often the absence of the history of black people. That happens in Afrika, Europe, Asia, America and Australia. Yes, Afrika learns about Europe and America in detail in many places, before learning about home. Of course people are going to imagine Europe and America are havens on earth. 


The thinking of the world is shaped vertically. Knowledge is about the North usually. Often. Except for independent places like China. South and North Korea.

It is a shame that we do not mix cultures and philosophers, thinkers of today often quoted or seen on media are of the West. The Internet has come... Nightbird. Try. 

If messages are to be passed around the world then let them come from all over. Everywhere Nightbird has been, it is people who are discriminated who fight most against discrimination. Is that not right? But, how come? Why is it that way? 

Time all people took it very personally, and the more people in the peoples that are associated with being at the top of it the better. We say even domestic violence and discrimination of women will not end until the perpetrators become the inhibitors, the fighters. More role models please!

What Nightbird means is that the world in her flight is round. Take messages from all around. When she saw the Cologne Cathedral darkening, she heard words of  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr ring in her mind. 


“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. 

Hate cannot drive out hate:  only love can do that.” 

― Martin Luther King Jr.A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

More thoughts from different peoples and their pictures then need spreading? And sure those whose ancestors went long a go as slaves or immigrated became part of those lands? How not? Not so long ago a long BBC TV had this as its topic. Some steps have been made but it is still news. Yes, news. #Stopracism. Take this around the world. 
©Philo Ikonya Giraffe Center Kenya 2013



"To come to the boundary line and hear a 13-year-old girl call me an "ape", and it's not the first time on a footy field that I've been referred to as a "monkey" or an "ape", it was shattering,' he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-2331552/Aboriginal-Aussie-Rules-footballer-confronts-13-year-old-girl-allegedly-called-ape-escorted-stand-racist-abuse.html#ixzz3O44ZelOz
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | 
DailyMail on Facebook