The Inbetweeners

Eating your cake and having it too. Perhaps hypocrisy is wilful stupidity and blindness. Or, perhaps, hypocrisy abounds in a dearth of accountability; when not a single soul can hold you to the promises you made and the words you said. Sometimes, they do not wish to. I raise these, ultimately, similar interpretations of hypocrisy to respond to the ongoing crisis of teen pregnancies in Kenya.  Recent data suggests that nearly 1 out of every 5 girls in Kenya, between the ages of 15-19, is pregnant. According to UNESCO, "the rate increases rapidly with age from 3% among girls aged 15, to 40% among girls aged 19." The COVID-19 pandemic, and its impact on economic livelihood, social stability and educational outcomes, merely exacerbated this crisis. As people stayed home to keep themselves safe from COVID, many sacrificed access to sexual and reproductive health services (SRHS). These services go beyond the provision of contraceptive services and, directly worsened access to HI...

We all know that there are three responses to a perceived threat: fight, flight and freeze.   Two of the three, are widely studied and legitimised - flight and fight. The last of these - freeze - is subjected to intense scrutiny. Many cannot understand what would compel you to freeze and allow your attacker another opportunity to attack when you are confronted with a threat. To be honest, I don't either. This is why we struggle to empathise with the proverbial deer caught in headlights and often use that anecdote as a soft insult to those who freeze in the face of danger. And yet, there is a reason why deers freeze; a lesson for us to all learn. Deers freeze in headlights because they cannot see at all. Its' eyes are not calibrated to take in the sheer brilliance of a car's lights. As a result, deers need to freeze in order to assess the threat before them. We do this too. How do you react when lights are turned on, abruptly, in a dark room? We freeze while our eyes adjust,...

Hopefully, this won't be too long; although, I doubt it. In fact, the only thing I'm sure of is that I have nothing I would like to say. Nor do I have an opinion that needs to be explored by way of a post. Case in point:  The Melilla Massacre:  Bad. Everything about this is bad. It confirmed to me the disposability of black bodies, and the willingness to treat black migration with violence and fear. Contrast how these, African, migrants, and those from Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen, were treated to the welcome Ukrainian refugees and asylum seekers received; even though their motivations for leaving were, essentially, the same. Even though the justifications cited for curtailing the number of welcomed refugees/asylum seekers (i.e. the pressure these individuals would place on welfare systems and the bullshit argument that immigrants are more likely to commit crimes ) are equally applicable. And yet, the latter were welcomed with open arms, and pushed to the front of lines, whil...

I have given myself 10 minutes to write on a complex situation of structural racism and classism and the problems I have with clubbing culture. And I have a sneaking suspicion that I've bitten off more than I can chew here. Because the Alchemist situation is A LOT. So let's start at the beginning. For the uninitiated, Alchemist is a bar/club/restaurant hodge-podge in one of Nairobi's wealthier locales; Westlands. It is frequented by middle-upper-class Kenyans of various races, ethnicities and tribes. But this does not mean that class is an equalizer; in fact, the socioeconomic class may have exacerbated what happened the FIRST time. The first time Alchemist got in trouble was over a video alleging racial discrimination in the way patrons were organized. In an unnecessary throwback to separate but equal, the video shows two lines: one for Africans and a separate line for White/Asian patrons. When an African patron attempts to, literally, cross the aisle, a bouncer directed t...

When we think of blasphemy, many of us think of taking the Lord’s name in vain. But very few of us understand what this means. Taking the Lord’s name in vain goes beyond the occasional “Oh My God” and towards something more substantive. It is failing to take God, and his message seriously. It is a failure to afford, not just the name of God, but his teachings the respect they deserve. And this failure manifests itself in more than just a simple slip of the tongue. Sometimes, blasphemy means re-writing, not translating, the entire Bible to suit your needs. Christianity is replete with those who seek to re-write the Gospel and appropriate its’ moral authority to their own ends. A modern-day example is the Bible used by the Church of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) or the Mormons. In addition to their own text – the Book of Mormon which explains God's relationship with the people of the indigenous people of the Americas by placing one of the lost tribes of Israel on the American continent – ...

Anxiety is the reason I re-write a sentence a million times over; eventually abandoning my thoughts in favour of carefully managed silence;  I jump from thought to thought; afraid to commit to one out of fear that it will bind me.  I stare out at nothing, while every possibility, every fear, every hope flits through the open road of my subconsciouness, all at once in a chaotic sequence of order. I shut down when asked how I really am; because how can I unleash the flood of emotion on an unsuspecting innocent? How can I ask them to take on a burden I have neglected? How can I demand more of them, than I am willing to give myself? I can't believe in myself; why should I when there is always someone better than me, faster than me, smarter than me, more capable than me. Anxiety is the reason why I will never be enough, not even for myself.  I find comfort in sameness, routine and predictability; Anxiety is the reason why the search for these things defines my life. Anxiety is...

Hello! Before I begin, I would like to explain what I'm trying to achieve here. In essence, this is the literary version of a photodump; a 'thought-dump' if you will. Each of the topics I want to address is a work in progress. These are not my fully formed thoughts, in the sense of being able to write long, thought-provoking pieces on them each. Instead, treat them as insights into the conclusions I will, eventually, reach; like an ultrasound of my mental processes. I felt it necessary, to begin with, this context because too often we engage with perspectives as if they are in their final form , unchangeable and unmoving. And I understand this impulse because this is how I engage with many of the perspectives that challenge my understanding of the world and sense of self.  Anarchy : Granted, many of those perspectives actively call for the absolution of my human rights, but some do force me to think critically about the ideologies I subscribe to. For example, of late I have...