What does it mean to write

Writing in England used to be the preserve of the wealthy and rich, so in the future only their memory of the past will be remembered. That’s why many of us know the names of Kings and Queens of England but don’t know the name of our own great grandfathers. For the working class, the sixties changed all that. The working class and middle class wannabees tried to capture their rage in Room at the Top, Look Back in Anger and this Sporting Life, they were the bestsellers turned into film and the stars into superstars. But no such renaissance occurred in the world of Black British Writing. We were struggling to survive against the teddy boy-skinheads-National Front-racists-Faschists-institutional-overt-indirect discrimination. As for Africa it was a mystery for too many of us.

Our renaissance is yet to come, and it’s been a long time coming.

They often say Africa has no history. They used to say that, so the lie could be perpetrated? And we had no proof because we had no books.

Do not repeat the mistakes of the past.

Writing is a fundamental human write. To not to want to write, to refuse to write, is to deny the past and the legacy to come after. But others will write and in their writing you will be classified at best, ignored at worst and the memory of your true self will be forgotten in the momentary eclipse of the now.

Those who remember the 1980s and 1990’s, to be black and young, to have lived through those times, why, we are a dying breed. To be of the same generation as Stephen Lawrence. To have been young when Spike Lee did his thing and Public Enemy and Soul to Soul kicked. So if we don’t write, who will remember us and how will we understand how we reached this point, if there are no stories to tell the young so that they can learn from our mistakes.

The stories are the method of teaching the ones who are born and the ones who are yet to be born. But the powers that be will write the conformist lies and publish this all over the world and tell you that’s the truth and how will you refute this. Have you invested enough in your own fundamental rights? Apathy is indeed the greatest tool used against productivity.

But it takes effort to write. Nothing worthwhile, is so easily obtained.

Are you prepared for the long hard struggle that leads to the light that means ultimate knowledge of self.