Lockdown Archives…

I was scrolling through my notes this morning when I came across this piece i wrote sometime last year during lockdown, most of it still holds true and hopefully it’s a good read

This is probably the hardest year we’ve all ever faced. There’s a raging pandemic that has forced us into our homes, imprisoned indefinitely ,only to sometimes get out but strictly under the suffocating fabrics of masks. The States and the western countries are embroiled in protests to end police brutality against black people and all racial injustices that black people face in general. Economies are in tatters, businesses going under, unemployment running rampant and futures up in the air. Things have never been as uncertain, no one has the faintest idea how the world will be even just a few months from now. Survival is the priority and suddenly all these other things appear vain.

Isn’t it funny how there first has to be a loss of life and disruption to ordinary life for us to actually appreciate how good we have it? And in the spirit of protests and standing up for causes, people have taken to the streets and to twitter to rally behind their respective causes, and here’s where it gets interesting for me… interesting in the sense that we’re all behind ending racism but most of us are still colorists, biggots,sexists and homophobes… and don’t get me started about the #MeToo movement and the fight against rape culture. Everyone is together in denouncing rape and abuse, but if that’s the case then how come people are still getting abused?

Photo by Kat Jayne on Pexels.com

The people who really annoy me the most are the self righteous guys who say ” not all men are trash” or the women who say ” but the men in my life aren’t trash”, well i got news for you sweetheart…by virtue of being human beings, part of the human condition is how incredibly flawed we all are , whether we know it or not. We are all capable of causing terrible harm to the next person and we’re all one bad decision away from spending our lives behind bars. I’m always saying how everyone is a killer, under the right circumstances, meaning to say that we’re all capable of doing despicable things under the adequate amount of stress. No man in their right mind would ever dream of themselves raising their hands at a woman or let alone beat her down to tears with words, but under different circumstances numerous men have done it and continue to do it.

Back to my point about the self righteous guy and the advocate sister, in as much as you like to think that the men in your life will never do you like that, truth is THEY CAN, and hopefully they won’t, but in the event that it happens you’ll be so devastated about the betrayal and the abuse you’ll find it hard to even report it. The reason why I don’t want people to sanctify themselves is because I’ve heard of a girl who was molested by her uncle, reported to her parents and they laughed at her accusations because they thought the uncle would never do her like that. So instead of trying to check yourself as an ally or mark yourself safe from abusers in your life, acknowledge that you are capable of doing much harm or that the people around you are too, and make an active effort to never be on either end of the two-edged sword of abuse. I believe that forewarned is forearmed and once we are aware of our reality, the more likely we are to check ourselves as abusers and the less likely we are to feel shame as victims and actually report it. This is how i believe we can end rape culture ladies and gentlemen. As for the remaining struggles and causes, that’s a story for another day