Snippet- "strange fruit" -chapter letters to my unborn

To my unborn


The Sound of a scribbling pen

After my father passed away it would be the last time in my life that my mother would physically pick me up from the ground if ever I fell down unless it was a life threatening injury, those years were hard for me because I was young and didn’t fully understand but don’t get it wrong she did this out love, there was a hidden wisdom she knew a secret that in the absence of a man I would have to learn very early in life how to pick myself up and keep going, I would have to learn to be my own cheer leader and motivator and I would have to teach my mind to go ahead my soul to provide the energy and my body to follow, my grind would have to be more potent more relentless and to this day I thank her for it. I look at my generation and my counter parts and many men have fallen over and they have stayed there waiting for someone to come and pick them up, they have become baby hooeys’ boys in men’s bodies and sadly I have to let them know no one’s coming to pick you up so get up or go home this is just life. It’s tragic that we now live in society where the men gossip and complain more than the women do, it’s tragic that these very men can be out worked and out endured by the women they aim to dominate when they should be partnering up, and now that I know that you are coming into this world my unborn from eternity into time, I don’t know if you’re a boy or girl but if you are a prince forgive me now, for after you turn age of 7 I will do as my mother did to me because I love you and I want you to be strong and not to get lost on the path of masculinity and I don’t want to make you a cripple in a cruel world,you can cry but you are going to get up on your own. I will pick you up with my words but not with my hands, and if you’re a princess daddy will always be there to pick up when you need me just call.

Allow me to introduce myself I am your father but you can call me Da and you, well you’re not born yet, whether you’re a boy or girl your name will be Anesu which in Shona means “god with us”. I hope and pray to God to live and grow old and grey with you as I have asked to do with your mother ,to guide and watch you become everything you can be but alas the times we live in are crazy and my own heart speaks against me, they say if you have faith then you shouldn’t have fear but I do have one fear that is the sins of the father will visit the son and so I have chosen to write these letters to you so that if anything should happen to me at least I leave you a blue print and in some strange way we have this relationship and you would have less questions as you grow older. I need you to know that I thought about you and loved you before I even met your mother (laughing) you were the subject of many a conversation between me and this guy called Jesus, often I would watch the sun fall wondering where you were. So know that when you are born you are more than enough and everything you do after you breathe well that is just a blessing even the mistakes there just a chance for you to learn you have nothing to prove to anybody accept yourself just know that you are loved. If I have any choice in the matter and I do, I hope to love you both the soft and gentle as well as with the tough love which only time will explain to you because at the time you will think I am unfare as I did with those before me, that tough loves a hard one because you will most probably at the time think I am crazy but when you will get it when your older I hope you understand.

One of the reasons why I write to you now is simply because my father died when I was 7 years old. He was a good man for all that I know and I can remember... when he died something happened to me I am not sure what it was exactly, but what but I do remember I was a very lost little boy in the dark trying to fill a void it is here I learnt to cry like an adult with a false sense of dignity and not like a child with all emotion and hurt such as to take my soul to laundry mat as god had designed tears for, I learnt one of the great lies of being an adult while I still 7,how to be a true thespian to look normal and well groomed on the surface while my soul was in torment walking the on coals of hell searching for significance and self-worth, when you arrive in this world and live long enough there are things that you will go through that words will fail to describe some of them good and some of them well you will figure it out , these moments will be yours and yours alone, these moments will be the places where people fail to understand you and often you will be aware that you walk with god and god alone all your life... and my father passing was one of them for me. Anyway the problem is that I knew him (my father)as a child would know his father, pretty much as a super hero with a cape and spandex an immortal who could do anything and the only other true father I knew was God and I assure that has being a very complicated relationship for lack of relationship, Who in himself is perfection? The dilemma for me came as I grew older, there was not only a need for guidance but a need to understanding my frailties and shortcomings as well as my strengths and gifts, my quirkiness, the heart inside of my chest that seemed schizophrenic one day it wants to lay down and die and the next moment it was defiant fiery it would lift its middle finger at life and says bring it on. One of the hardest things to achieve and master in life and I can warn you about it now is balance I know because I am still a student of balance as I write to you, it is something I still struggle with today and I am sure I will until I am called home by the lord, the loss of my father also caused me to grow at a rate faster than my counter parts again with little guidance I found the scales tipped and I stumbled feeling my way through life never truly knowing whether I was right or wrong ( alight sigh) all I needed was a nod or pat on the back a little affirmation. In it all I soon figured out I had soul that didn’t compromise , a mind that rarely slept and heart that was driven and hardened with callus on the outside but very tender inside ,for most of my life I pretty much walked alone even thou I wasn’t.. I think I am doing better now but along the way I made a lot of mistakes ... and I assure this world is very unforgiving and I had to learn that one’s mistakes do not define who you are, and I had to learn how to forgive myself because if you don’t you become a cripple and a puppet for Satan.

I really hope you get to know me as a man, as Mandela once said “in my strengths and great victories as well as all my weakness and failures.” You need to see me 360 degrees in all my seasons somehow it will help you understand yourself better what I call our complexities, I hope to be a book of knowledge for you as those who were before me were to me my parents ,your grandparents . My swagga is imprinted in your veins it’s just gonna come out you it might even be surprised hopefully in a good way(laughing) but there a lot things I will teach you intentionally like words this world doesn’t use any more like “integrity honour loyalty self-worth self-sacrifice family purpose long suffering to mention a few” having said that I am a man so from observing me you are going to learn what to do and what not to do because I have flaws I can admit that openly, you see how you have me teaching already because real men and we are a dying breed we can admit when we are wrong actually it’s a strength the part of you we will work on its called developing character, and hopefully you are a faster learner than I was because I was hard headed and have the scars to prove it. Secondly the ability to admit you were wrong with an open mind and sincere heart allows the capacity to learn faster than those around you. I don’t know why it’s so heavy on my heart but I feel I have to pound this into your head your coming into world where everyone got a get rich or die trying mentality baby if you can put a monetary value on its not worth shit. You can’t buy love and you can’t buy time you can’t buy purpose , you can’t buy satisfaction all the free things of god cost that something that isn’t money, I remember when I was growing up I had friend who was extremely rich and he could understand the satisfaction I got as boy becoming a man doing certain manual jobs and he used to make fun of me but I also remember how sad he was and how jealous he would get when my mother would look at a simple thing like the lawn being cut and say good job and say the “man of house”. My point is this doesn’t be deceived if you can put a monetary value on anything truly valuable. I am keep pounding it into your head so you aight for now. Before I end my entry for the day I need to address two genetic tendencies you might have to address as you get older which might make your life complex. I am strong believer in embracing your uniqueness, so the first issue is I have what they call an acquired sense of humour and I am allergic to stupid people this particular condition cannot be cured, but you can hide it by not saying anything at all and laughing in your head, but I must warn you might find yourself feeling the urge to say something or simply slap the taste out of fool. It’s natural try your best to walk away , your mother will not approve but if the urge over takes you hit them in throat or groin, number 2 you better pray you inherited my speed to run (laughing) okay we got that one out the way . The second issues is more serious it’s on your mother side I didn’t know what I was marrying into I am just put it out there but I still love her… most of the time, if you find yourself having a urge to serial ass slapping grabbing tendencies especially post puberty it’s her, I am serious when I met your mother my ass looked like half a basketball now I got ass dimples and it’s not from working out (laughing). If you are having this issue as you get older don’t seek therapy it won’t work, don’t talk to me talk to your mother I am still trying to cure her but it has its moments. That’s me for the day I don’t want to flood your mind I hit you up some more tomorrow and remember daddy loves you

The scribbling stops

About strange fruit

About

For me strange fruit is not about racism but rather a plethora of issues in society we would rather sweep under the rug be it out of shame escapism or ignorance and we grow up with it, we fall from the vine and we finely pick it up and look in the mirror and you would be surprised who is a strange fruit. I tackle issues like fatherlessness, drugs, body image of course racial profiling both ways, stereo types to abuse of child-women- men etc. I face off with dark side which twins the light of humanity what I like our call our complexities as human beings, I am not a psychologist but society seems to be suffering from an extremely high levels of escapism and moral bankruptcy if not a full out recession in context of morals and love, and we would rather not face the truth but float by in a dreamy and drugged up state until individuals are awoken on personal levels by the pains of the vicissitude’s of life hence so much mental illness of late. This book is not designed to change lives you’re the master of your own mind so only you can do the change thing if you want to, they call it freedom of choice or individuality use it. To me society is the tree and these issues we do not address are the strange fruit we see in our children in our homes on our streets in the nations in and in the world and for those who can be honest in the mirror . Okay let’s get to the grits of it…

For those who do not know “Strange fruit” was originally a song made famous by Billy Holiday and Nina Simone about the brutal killing of slaves in the south of the Americas and after they were killed they were hung on popular tree’s to instil fear in other slaves and serve an as example . Two reasons why I choose it as the title for the book, the first was when i looked into the mirror at the age 30 with my shirt off and could see all these scars which I never when I left Zimbabwe if I was the tree the scars where the strange fruit from racial conflicts I would rather of walked away from but sometimes you have to fight the beast one cannot always hide behind passiveness and the hope of change. Secondly I looked at society and all the crazy killings going on in the world beautiful youg girl’s filled insecurity, grown men who still act like boys and thought to my self

“Satan’s putting in Extra time and we are the ones eating this strange fruit and we end up being the strange fruit”..

Now before I go any further I want to clarify something black men during slavery where not the first people to be lynched, I can see some of your eyes widen “what ?” … “so who was it?”

Many will argue this fact I am just here to enlighten the first people to lynched by white men where white women during the mid-evil times through witch hunts as a control mechanism out of the fear. Women who choose to act independently of men and refused to conform to the social norms of the times where accused of being a witch and then tortured raped and public hangings and burnings enforced by the clergy and mobs of ignorant men and scared women, any woman who acted out of the norm could be accused of being witch having said that I wasn’t there but we do know from history many innocent women were tortured hung and burnt alive during this period, but I do know at the same time in Africa women were queens warriors(Amazonians)and advisors to chiefs and kings a historic fact of course Africa wasn’t perfect ,yes we had some tribes doing messed up stuff but for most of our history women in Africa where highly revered until colonization when our men adapted western stances and ideology, when slaves came across the ocean the mechanism of fear control and torture used to make women confess they were witches was then extended to slaves to break their minds and plant the seed of inferiority hence forth lynching as was originally done to women in the mid evil age. Know in life as far as I am concerned and observed there are three sets of treatment for human beings and please forgive my example. You might not agree but the honesty in your own heart you can not deny.

If a young white man was seen walking/staggering down the road and he is drunk he was/is having a good time. If a black male is seen staggering down the road he is a threat or one of those people and if a woman is seen staggering drunk down the road she is a dirty slut bitch or a whore, asking for it. It is based on the observation of this tier that I wrote this book with the highest level of impartiality life experience will allow me to have, having being raised by a women I saw their plight in a society blindly led by men’s ego’s and I admired these women’s strength how they endured circumstance and I bared witness to their brokenness and how resilient they were I am not an authority on women but I am an authority on pain, process, scars and we share them (scars that is ) over the years, and I myself for those of you who haven’t guessed am African so with a certain level of authority I can speak on the subject of being black in the western world and what I o

bserve from this side of the eye ball history is written by those who win war so this story I share is untold despite what they say it seems we are still fighting for the right to be I and I or as say my true self. I have a soft spot for women I have hunger for truth and I have very low tolerance for racism black or white anybody in this case and I am innately allergic to stupid people. If you dare come walk with me.