By Kudakwashe Ziunye 

THE undeniable effects of colonisation are terribly haunting the black race. 

Blackmen and women with white skin are now a common sight. 

Blackmen and women trying to bleach and spray paint their black skin to look like white men is the norm of today’s Africa. Who are we trying to imitate or please? 

Who else except the ghost of Rhodes and white men’s ideologies, our former colonial masters who literary disappeared as our brutal slave masters and without doubt are reappearing again as gods cursing our skin, in our imagination and thinking. However, Black colour is not the ambassador of evil as most are trained to think. 

Dark skin is a type of human skin colour that is rich in melanin. 

In the past it was used in ancient Greece as the ‘underworld’ colour. 

It was recognised as the colour of mourning in the Roman Empire. 

Over the centuries it was seriously associated with death, evil witches and magic. 

Black colour according to the Western world represents absence or nothingness. 

It is against this wrong and prejudiced understanding that we strongly fight in favour of the black race. 

We fearlessly affirm with confidence that it is not a crime or mortal sin to be an African. 

Black skin is by far not a representative of absence, nothingness, witchcraft, ignorance or evil.  

What has been implanted in our dear Africans promotes the superiority of whites to blacks. 

No wonder our sisters and brothers are trying by all means to lighten up their skins using injections, or special lotions. 

However, by doing so blacks will never be whites but are destroying their health and enriching the manufacturers and the retailers. 

How are we to develop technologically, scientifically, politically when we try to run away from our roots and identity? 

Are we truly afraid or ashamed of our black skin and race? 

For a moment let us look at our daily language. 

Have you ever heard or said these words to a black person you think is successful? 

“Ha ava murungu chaiye,” (He/she is now a real whiteman). Have you ever understood how we generally think low of ourselves as a nation? 

You often hear statement like, “Dai varungu varipo tingadai tisiri kutambura sezvatirikuita izvi,” meaning if whites were around we would not be suffering as we are currently doing. 

In the midst of our ‘suffering’ here in Zimbabwe, how many times have we uttered words that seem to undermine or devalue our black skin and race? 

Our blessing and better future of Zimbabwe and Africa is in our true acceptance of our identity and race. 

If we do not genuinely do that we must totally forget about discoveries and true birth of originality and excellence in all fields. 

We can never be whites when we are blacks. 

Whites will never be blacks even if they are to paint their skin black. 

Let us be proud of who we are, of our identity, culture and language. 

No one will make our race shine with radiance and happiness besides ourselves. 

Do you enjoy the company of a person who tries by all means to imitate the way you talk, walk, think and even dress? 

The imitator is always inferior and the imitated is always superior. 

Imitating other people’s mannerism makes us honestly look like cartoons. 

Africans are not shadows in the existence of whites. 

Let us therefore quickly raise ourselves to awareness and immediately commence to respect our black skin and race. 

Are we truly ashamed of our black skin and race? 

If we have become unconsciously addicted to self-hate, we must face our fears courageously and quickly realise that real death is characterised by denying one’s identity. 

Any living person who does not accept his/her own identity then he/she can best be described as a breathing grave. 

Breathing graves are a bunch of imitators who deny their power of creativity and originality among themselves. 

Indeed such people live for themselves and never for the next generation. 

In the light of this understanding, we refuse to live as animals do and totally accept to live as unique individuals of a unique and great race. 

In light of this understanding most of the problems Africa and Africans are facing today will disappear. 

Collectively as black people let us fight against our own fears and visualise ourselves as equal before any race in the world. 

It is not a sin to be an African. 

Let us never ever be ashamed of our black skin and race. 

Kudakwashe Ziunye is an entrepreneur, poet, writer, philosopher and an executive director of The Well of Happiness Foundation in Africa Trust.