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The Identity Politics of Swaziland & Eswatini
On April 19 2018 King Mswati III made an announced that the country previously known as “Swaziland shall henceforth be renamed to Eswatini”or was it eSwatin? The name change obviously took everyone by surprise considering that we had not received the memo, but the fact that it was dressed in the cloaks of “self-determination” meant that we could saturate the aftermath with identity decolonization lingo. Identity politics have always been a rallying subject for Africans which is understandable considering the extent to which our identity has been erased. But I often ask myself if we will ever be vigilant enough to equally denounce the history of internal colonization? On the…
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Friends Who Just Met
“We are each other’s harvest. We are each other’s business. We are each other’s magnitude and bond” -From “Paul Robeson” by Gwendolyn Brooks From the beginning, everything seemed so familiar. Joanne and I had arrived at the theater early Monday morning to meet with local poets who had signed up for this two-day workshop. Joanne was the highly-touted teacher from the far-away United States, and the Eswatini poets came expecting to receive from this prolific scholar furious flower-like nuggets that would enhance their craft. Except for a janitor and a couple of poets who were in the theater when we arrived, the building was desolate. Within half an…
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Deeper Than Double: Nikki Giovanni and her Appalachian Elders
Reflections by Affrilachian Poet Asha French on a talk given by Nikki Giovanni at the 2019 Furious Flower Summer Legacy Seminars honoring the life and work of Giovanni. “Right now, if you were driving… Well, nobody has flat tires anymore. But if you had a flat tire in the old days when people had flat tires, the best place to be was in Appalachia.” The world-renowned Nikki Giovanni is “caping” for Appalachia, and her “you” is me—a Black woman who, before talking with Giovanni, might have been afraid to stop alone in any Appalachian “old day” with four good tires. My “really?” betrayed the conditioning Giovanni works to undo. “Oh,…