Tag: #controversy

United African Nations ?

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(Hey guys, before I begin, I would just like to apologise for my absence on here , I have started a placement, yes officially entered into the working life and I’m just trying to find balance on blogging, time for myself and also time for God, as that’s been slacking *slowly reminisces on when I had a solid quiet time routine*. This post was written months ago but I thought it would be a good idea to include it now since it is still relevant)

It’s every Saturday morning that my Dad has to show me a WhatsApp video on his phone about the atrocities not only happening in South Africa, but in other “fellow African” countries such as Nigeria and etc. Videos of shops being vandalised, demolished and burnt, not to talk less of people being burnt with tyres around their bodies and it really leaves me to wonder how we even allowed it to get to this point

If you didn’t know, this is the current situations happening in South Africa:

So now that you know the basics around the situation, I thought why not put my own two cents into this topic as me being an African and also having studied the history of how Africans relate to each other in this present day, I thought I could add my own perspective to this controversial topic.  I first came across this after seeing news that many African stars such as Burna Boy and Tiwa Savage boycotting their performances in South Africa due to the acts that they were committing in that country. Honestly, I didn’t take much notice of it as after all, starts always boycott their performances for various reasons. However, it wasn’t until I saw this post from famous South African comedian Trevor Noah that stated:

trevor noah

This provides another perspective to the issue of xenophobic attacks, with one side stating that they are seen as “foreigners” who are deliberately taking the jobs of the South African people, whilst the other side (Trevor’s) explaining how the real issue is that whites still have the majority of ownership of businesses, agricultural lands and income, and I couldn’t agree more.

It really hurts to see that Africans who all belong from continent and who are all united are actually pushing their brothers and sisters away instead of helping them or encouraging them once they have started a business, This goes to show that xenophobia is still alive, well and kicking in the sense that Africans are still against each other by not uplifting them and investing in their businesses.

This is just a topic that had to be discussed briefly, I would love to hear your thoughts or opinions on this topic!

Thanks for reading

 

 

ESSENCE TALKS 5 – THE BBL DILEMMA.

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It’s Friday. You’ve just come home from a long week of work and your girls have invited you for a night out of drinks and fun. Despite your feet aching, your hair not being washed and your heart desperately yearning for your remote to watch Netflix in bed – you decide to go. That silk black dress that you know is figure hugging is eagerly staring back at you as it lays on your bed.. but then your head slowly starts to drop down almost as if you are a baby struggling to stay awake as you look at your “FUPA”

Okay story telling is over- let’s address the elephant in the room. Orrr page…

Yes, the infamous BBL, the abbreviation that is going all around the streams of social media and has now become the new trend/phase lately causing numerous of girls to go under the knife and causes numerous amounts of debates online. And here I am to add my own 2 cents into it.

Why am I calling it a dilemma? :
I decided to name this post the BBL dilemma only based on the reason that I am literally stuck on whether I support the option to have a procedure done and whether not to. I wouldn’t say I’m contradicting myself by supporting two different options but let’s just say I am in support of a person’s choice to change an insecurity if they have the means to and it is not detrimental to anyone’s wellbeing. However, I am also in much support of women not automatically succumbing to social trends based on their body part and then going under the knife is then seen as their only option to getting rid of a body part that society has deemed unflattering. So, since I haven’t come to a solid conclusion about which side, I’m on I will call it a dilemma.

The Biology Lesson:
BBL’S or Brazilian Butt Lifts is a surgical procedure in which fat is transferred from different body parts such as the abdomen, hips, lower back and thighs through liposuction and then transferred to the butt to create a desired look of a larger butt or a curvier body.
I can’t pinpoint exactly when it started to be on the rise in terms of popularity, but I believe it began to be an American craze before it crossed borders to the UK. According to the BBC there are several reasons why BBL’s cause severe damage or even death to women, such as injecting the fat the deep muscle tissue which can be incorrectly put into the veins, fat being transferred to the bloodstream and then to the heart, or it being done by inexperienced practitioners.

Image result for bbl surgery

Average People:

This whole post was inspired after watching Live from Layfield’s YouTube video talking about the problem of average people (mainly being influencers, youtubers etc) getting these procedures done. It leaves us to really question where the line has to be drawn with it. I like the points they were making, and it really made me question some of the things regarding these surgical procedures, one being about insecurity.

I’ve started to notice that you are never really going to be happy with your insecurities, whether it be the size of your height, your FUPA or the size of your butt, how it doesn’t agree with the size that society has deemed to be acceptable. But the fact that going under the knife to create something that agrees with societal standards, doesn’t mean deep down you have changed your insecurity, you have almost just masked it.

So, when its average people promoting this procedure and ‘influencing’ to follow suit, I guess it leads us to question are they really influencing body confidence, or influencing societal standards?

Solutions:
Like the YouTube video said, I believe the main solution to this is to know who you are in Christ/ or at least know your worth if you are not religious. God did not make any mistake when making you, this is evident by making you very unique to everyone else, no one else has your fingerprint even, if you think God made you the same would he have let things such as the amount of hairs on your head be the same as everyone else’s? I’m not trying to preach here but its’ food for thought.

Others include:
-Limiting your social media time: One tip that Is recommended is to have a limit on your social media time, I would say Instagram the most, bodies are plastered constantly all over the explore page and it can be discouraging to one’s eye. If it’s really affecting, you decrease your time

-Verbal agreements: if this means standing in the mirror every day for 5 minutes repeating to yourself “I am happy with my body” then by all means do so. Verbally repeating something to yourself each day will aid in increasing your self-confidence.

Thanks for reading x

Is H&M Racist ??

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So if you’ve been scrolling down your social media pages this week, you probably would have come across this picture…

Image result for h&m monkey jumper

This was a picture released by clothing store H&M this week , showing a young black boy modelling children’s clothing, perfectly fine right ? However what has sparked global outcry, as I should say is the backlash H&M received over the words printed on the jumper ” Coolest Monkey In The Jungle”. Many people were outraged over this picture, questioning H&M’s reasons behind this and even threatening to boycott the clothing store. As this is all over my Instagram feed, I looked into this more and decided to talk about my opinion on this interesting topic.

Now personally, ( I really hope I don’t get backlash for this lool ) I actually don’t think its racist at all. Here’s why. I was just scrolling through my explore page on Instagram as you do normally, and I happen to come across this picture as it had gained prominence on social media. My immediate thought to this was , “oh just another store promoting their clothing- normal right?” It wasn’t until I clicked on the picture and the caption  was shaming H&M for releasing this picture on their website, blaming them for deliberate racist terminology being used on the model, it just wasn’t looking good.

So I thought to myself, what is the big deal ? It wasn’t until I read the comments, that everyone was angry at the words printed on the jumper. That’s where I began to understand everyone’s outrage. Now obviously the connotations with “monkeys” and black people have stemmed from the past, it could even be argued as a current racial issue today, so when it has been printed on a black boy, it is understandable to an extent to see where everyone’s anger has come from.

But I still thought about it and said to myself, wellll …. is it really necessary for people to be on such a rant about this ? Is it really racist as people say it is ? and honestly I thought to myself – no. If you think about it, at the end of the day it’s children’s clothing. You would normally see words such as the one printed above written on boys children’s clothing, even the boy who happens to be white modelling with him had the words ” Mangrove Jungle Survival Expert” printed on his jumper, it just so happened that the boy with the monkey caption was black, so immediately everyone went on a social media rampage about the jumper. I do totally see where people with these views are coming from, but strangely I would say I don’t completely agree with them.

This picture has really had an effect on people, so much that even Diddy has apparently offered the boy a $1 million dollar modelling contract in response to H&M’  actions. The Weeknd who had a collaboration with H&M last year stated “i’m deeply offended and will not be working with the brand anymore” on his twitter, adding to the publicity of this picture due to his huge following on Twitter. The main response to this was the huge amount of people stating they were going to boycott the store, both online and in store branches, in response to their actions.

Seeing this reminded me of the Dove campaign, back in 2011 outrage sparked over Dove’s ad showing a black female taking off a brown shirt over head, to which a white female is shown after, insinuating that using the dove product will either make you whiter I’m guessing ? , however people failed to miss the fact that after the white woman was shown, she took off her top and a middle eastern woman was shown, demonstrating that the Dove lotion works for all skin tones and every race. But I can’t even lie, I was angry back then myself about this ad, I guess we all misinterpreted the meanings behind this ad ! Image result for dove racist advert

Well I’ve stated my points and opinions on this controversial topic regarding H&M, and I would really love to see who agrees with my views, many would say that H&M made this move and don’t realise the consequences that came with this picture, also many would say the they were doing this for publicity as they are one of the trending topics of news on social media right now. Whatever the intentions where behind this picture is really left for the individual to decide…