How shadows can unravel racism and colonialism

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Soon I’ll create a new story, influenced by the experiences I make, scenes I observe or the juiciness of life itself. Sometimes I write about lessons I learned, stories I lived or just the mood of the day. Follow for more life insights. Especially insights on how to live to the fullest extent.
Go all in, always.

Be you. And be everything.

Photo by Tom Barrett on Unsplash

Imagine yourself on a plane. You’re high above the world and see all these small houses, mountain ranges capped with snow, rivers and cities. You’re fortunate enough to sit next to the window and have no screen on the back of the seat in front of you. You forgot your book in the luggage and your phone ran out of battery. It’s an absolutely pleasant flight — no crying babies, nobody complaining. Just you and this window sight. Slowly you drift into a meditative state while listening to the consistent sound of the plane navigating through the sky. Just you and your thoughts. You realise that you cannot make out which city you’re flying over and there’s no way of knowing which country you’re crossing just by looking out the window. It all looks quite similar. There are no borders. There are no names. You notice that there is no obvious line drawn between two countries from above. It’s all the same.

When you take a picture against the sun, people will only appear as shadows. Unless you remember who stood where or can recall in detail the physique of everybody, you won’t be able to make out who’s who. You notice again that there is no difference between the people. All you can make out is that they’re human. Nothing else matters. On paper we have it put down. (the reality still looks VERY different sadly).
All wo(men) are equal.

WE ARE ALL EQUAL.

Why isn’t this working? When are we going to wake up?

How many humans will I have to continue to meet who tell me about their heartbreaking story? John from Nigeria who is living in Italy and trying to find a job, being scared of white people because he’s being confronted with racism every single day. Or Papa from Sénégal an incredibly intelligent man, not even being granted to work as a bus driver in Spain because people won’t enter the bus. While speaking six languages and adapting A LOT, he’s now picking fruits in the incredibly cold weather hoping for a better future.

Patriarchy, the Catholic Church and Capitalism put these systems into place and try to keep us there with their systemic stupid racism. But we must find a way to MAKE THEM rewrite history. MAKE THEM acknowledge what REALLY happened. My biggest hope lies in kids because they’re not yet exposed to these stupid ideologies. They don’t care about colour, race or other social constructs we’ve invented. They like everybody who’s nice. And that’s what we should re-learn. Children are the real teachers of the world and we can embrace that by listening more closely. Stop putting your ignorance over their intelligence. They don’t even know it, but they can be living examples of how we all should behave. (Except for the diaper part maybe).

Be aware of your behaviour towards others. We all carry a story and deserve unconditional love.

Stop homophobia.

Stop racism.

Stop sexism.

Be kind to yourself and others. You too deserve love.
Start to give and you will receive.


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