THE SPIRIT OF DANCE: If I could teach one thing what would I teach?

It always so hard to write when I am given a topic to write about and I find myself struggling to connect with it because it’s not something I organically came up with but I will write as honestly as I can. Since Precious asked me to contribute to his blog, who am I to deprive him of my talent… (Wink)

I recently came across the word ‘Black Consciousness’ and the works of Bantu Stephen Biko, the father of the Black Consciousness Movement. I have seen this work before and know about Steve Biko but it never impacted me like it did this time around. I think it also has to do with my maturity levels and how I view society that made me understand what he was trying to teach.

Black Consciousness is a philosophy that aims to emancipate blacks from mental slavery that still inhabits in their minds. Black people’s inferiority complex might not be as evident in 2012 as it was in the 1900s but it’s still shows in other ways.

If I could teach one thing, what would I teach? Well, in the words of Steve Biko, I would teach black people that ‘Black Is Beautiful’. I think I would go as far as to indoctrinate black people at birth with that belief so that it never escapes their minds and they never think otherwise. With all that said, don’t misunderstand me and think what I’m saying has anything with racism. I am not in any way saying that black people are better than any other people. All I want to do is making my people not think otherwise of themselves.

This black empowerment philosophy has been around for a long time and Steve Biko adopted the teachings of men like W.E.D Du Bois and his evaluation of the double consciousness, who echoed Black Nationalist Martin Delany's insistence that black people take pride in their blackness. Postcolonial thinkers such as Frantz Fanon, Léopold Senghor, and Aimé Césaire also helped shape Biko’s understanding of the importance of ‘Black Consciousness’.

The Black Consciousness Movement is still relevant today and I see that it’s a teaching that needs to be taught to the people so that we can eradicate the sub-humanness that still shadows black people in their everyday lives.

‘Man, you are okay the way you are. Black is beautiful’ said Biko.

Learn to love yourself and your blackness because there is nothing wrong with being black.Embrace and take pride in being black. You can try to lighten yourself and cover your natural crown with unnatural locks, but the fact remains. You are and will always be black.

If I could teach one thing, I would teach Black Consciousness.