Patience Akumu Sunshine
Maaka surprised me with tickets to watch Joe Thomas on Sunday night. I had to travel out of the country for work the very next day, and it was tempting to sell the tickets and just move on to my life of reports, statements and talking points.
Sitting with hundreds of people who look just like me at Mestil gardens at 9, swaying to songs like Beyonce’s Single Ladies and Usher’s Burn as we waited for the main act, it felt worth it. Everyone looked gorgeous in that flamboyant way millennials are known to be. Shiny dresses, high heels, shouting lipstick — the kind of look that my Alpha daughter would say is not chill at all. Maybe even cringe.
Alone, it would be hard to tell that these, mostly women, are doing a delicate dance with 40. But in one room together, there was an undeniable denominator. A head tilted would reveal fine lines near the head. A laughter and you see the forehead furrows of women who defied life and lived through ambiguous expectations to thrive.
Who was at the show?
The group of single women who never bothered to get married because they were too traumatized by the raw deal marriage dealt their parents. The woman dancing alone unabashedly, shaking off the remnants of a divorce after a marriage that never should have happened…
The woman with the beautiful big natural hair who defied societal pressure to straighten it and grew her mane for years. The women, a multitude of them, whose battle with bleaching creams in a society that celebrates lighter skin, is written all over their skin.
What is wrong with millennials is a question my niece Katono Margaret asked me on one of the episodes of Hide the Meat. I did not know how to explain to her that the travel across technologies, life philosophies and time has a way of moulding you into something undefinable.
I did not know how to explain that our flamboyant fashion is our message of defiance in a society of limitations, especially for girls. I could not explain that at our time, colonialism tentacles ran deep, and our bleached sisters are still trying to shake these off.
How could I tell her that she is right: many of us are addicted to drugs, alcohol and other unsayable things? How do I explain that after witnessing the vagaries of HIV, still remembering the heated debates to have the word women’s rights in the Constitution and seeing a global uprise against all things black, woman and progressive, it is a miracle we still have the willpower to go and dance to Joe.
The flashy iPhones and latest Samsungs we used to film the show, the acrylic nails we wave, the loud flamboyance we carry… all the ways we dare to be flawed and present is not a pitfall. It is the ladder that propped you up to live so unapologetically and freely that you can dare to question what is wrong with your elders.
The patriarchy got you on a lock down but baby, we got the master key, used it and kicked open every door. We broke the chains for you so you can live free and truly free.
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Award-winning journalist. Lawyer. Unapologetic feminist. Telling stories of food, of life...
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