After the euphoria of the Black Pantha Lupita Nyong'o main actor of Woman King decided to go to Southern Benin where the original warriors of Dhaome lived. She moves with a translator who explains the cultures of the last surviving people who still have cultural art in the region.

The art includes the throne of the king of the Agoji tribe which was made at the corners with the skulls. The shores of this ancient town are proof of their slave trade activities.

I wrote about the Woman King some days back and on that day I got the feeling that those who wrote this movie were well aware of the beginnings of the story but they simply did not care.

Lupita talks to one of the living survivors of the slave trade as she cries the translator who is the granddaughter of this survivor starts to cry and Lupita asks why she had helped her glorify these warriors who did all this wrong to her people.

She says that she has forgiven them and she realises that they were only doing what they were told to do and not acting out of the free will.

Could this be a lesson?

In the last post, I talked about how many of the people living in Africa today are living here because many of our ancestors were in some way involved in the slave trade.

My mother told me a story that her grand-aunt told her. It was about how her (my great grand aunt) brother fled being sold off by the family. They saw him as useless and wanted to use him to make money, so he ran. Years later they found that he had started a business in another region and had grown to be successful.

Joseph

While writing this I am reminded of a similar story even from the bible about forgiveness and slavery and life. These things happened in the past, and even if many of us did not do it to one another, our ancestors did. We can not continue to blame ourselves for the wrong our ancestors committed simply because it was the way at the time.

Many of the black people who are crying about oppression do not realise that it was an eat-or-get-eaten world in those times.

I have heard people say that colonials are the cause of their problems today…People who have left the country and gone to their homes are your problem today.

Moving forward

If we want to move forward as a society we have to let go of what we did to each other and work to make more of the life we have now. How can you move forward when you are trying to fight back against all those years of oppression?

As Black people, we have to concern ourselves more with owning more businesses, building trade, and exchanging financial ideas. Leveraging on whatever position we find ourselves in today.

Buy land

Many black people all around the world are more interested in flexing their muscles about the block they are from, or the prevalent cult group they work under. They make claims to certain areas. They own this block. They take security issues into their hands, killing each other. Meanwhile, the government owns the land or some white family owns it.

After claiming that you own the block the government or some white guy will take money for rent because they own the block and you were just claiming to own it.

Let's help one another

The only way we can is if we pick each other up instead of tearing each other down. One thing I know is not going to help us is if we continually take the victim role when. We can’t help each other as blacks and people from other races who are not looking for a victim to higher. They are looking for somebody who is competent.

I hope I made sense in this post but feel free to share your thoughts.