GHOST explains the concept behind
 Afrika Unite: 
They'll Call Me Freedom Just Like a Waving Flag

Afrika Unite: They'll Call Me Freedom Just Like a Waving Flag was inspired by many different sources ranging from influential historical figures to music artists who have hands in promoting Afrikan unity throughout the Black Diaspora. This 30 x 40 Inch piece is also my love letter to Pan-Afrikanism and also a testament to the aspiration of becoming Pan-Afrikan. Many of the figures inside this piece range from Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Malcolm X, Henry Trotter, W.E.B. DuBois, Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko, Mariam Makeba, Kwame Toure (Stokely Charmichael), Jomo Kenyatta, Molefi K. Asante, Amos Wilson, Ivan Van Sertima, Patrice Lamumba, Kwame Nkrumah, and Bob Marley.

The title of this piece--Afrika Unite-came from a Bob Marley song of the same title from his classic Survival album that promoted Pan-Afrikanism. The surtitle--They'll Call Me Freedom Just Like a Waving Flag--comes from the song Wavin' Flag by Somali-Canadian Hip Hop/Spoken Word artist K'naan, whom is also drawn inside the piece.

I used myself as a model because this concept comes from something very personal inside of me. Read the poem I wrote below to get an understanding...

Pan—Afrikan

I am in constant defense
Of my search for Afrika
As I use my personal
Pan-Afrikaness…

I am in constant defense
From those who look like me
Still brainwashed
By the colonists…

Does my search for Afrikaness
Threaten you?
I believe it threatens the
Foundations of your World View…
Cultural earthquakes
Knocking loose tectonic plates
Of your comfortable position…
Criticizing me…
Chastising me…
As you listen to my love
For a people not-too-distant…
Or does my search for Afrikaness
Threaten your 234 year lie
With an unspeakable truth?
Does my seeking an
Undistorted truth
Shed light on what you have learned
From a historical spoof?

My soul is bullet proof
Like the beauty of a certain
Nigerian Songstress

Knowledge of the
Mother continent provides a roof
Over the house
Being built…
And I warm myself by
Wrapping around my small frame
A quilt created by
Ancestral hands with a
Spiritual map back to
Afrika stitched next to where
It touches my heart.
My skin may lend itself
Close to the complexion of
Those who did not love…
Those who wore gloves of trade that
Really covered pale hands
Of death made to destroy;
Made to divide…
Today, those hands hide
Behind Amerikkkan
Text books that lie…

But my hair is the very
Texture that is locked in
The thickness of Nzinga’s resilience…
The coarseness of Yaa Asantewa’s
Diligence…
And the naturalness of
Toussaint L’Overture’s militancy
I use this to wipe away
Foreign alien cultural dominance…

Yet…

I am attacked
Because of my search for self-identity.
I am told to research my Indian history
I am told to research my Irish Ancestry…
But what is left out is the culture that
Was KNOWINGLY made a mystery…
Left with a question I already know the
Answer to…
“Why do we forget about Afrika?”
When your dark brown skin a thick lips
Resemble the beauty of Benin Kings?
Yet the only thing you claim is all
But that…
You reinforce it with…
“Blacks don’t know what they want to be
Called…”
My answer:
Do the arithmetic that our Ancestors created,
But some Greek got credit for…
Compare 500 years of colonization
To 145 years of supposed Emancipation
And tell me what the first freed slaves
Were mentally facing…
Original names,
Original spirituality,
Original traditions,
Original visions of beauty,
Got replaced with this superficial
Ideal of self that is still dipped in the
Liquid of swine and chemicals of
Relaxers that pollute and fry the facts…
Yet you ask,
Why does Afrika mean so much to me?

In 2010…
Questions such as that
Provides the sociological fact
That we as a People still have a long way to go

I am in constant defense
Of my search for Afrikaness
She is in constant defense
Of her embrace of Afrikaness

Her chemically unhampered hair
Is a reflection of her genetics;
She wears it as she was born,
Yet she is scorned by those who look like her;
Those who choose to look like those who are
Of a different genetic aesthetic…
Her genetic natural is scorned by those
Who prefer to live in a
Culturally prosthetic way of life.
Does the kinks in her hair threaten you
Like the rain threatens your fabricated follicle
Truth as you escape Oshun’s wet
Touch?

You,
Who is of a different racial hue,
You,
Who calls us angry,
Who creates beautiful words like,
“Reverse Racism”
You,
Who acknowledges dialogues of
Jewish Holocausts,
But frowns upon me
When I open my mouth about
The Great Afrikan Disaster,
You,
Who
Are the descendants of Massa,
Whose guilty conscience is fast to gag me
When I speak of past
Atrocities still not addressed
Correctly,
Past atrocities STILL not directly
Addressed on CNN Black-In-America
Even by those with darker skin…

Why does my Pan-Afrikaness
Threaten you so much?

But

I already know the answer…

©Copyright 2010. Antoine GHOST Mitchell.