– The Face We Show, the Truth We Hide –
They say black is gold. Black don’t crack. I never doubted that pride — it is woven into our history, our resilience, and our heritage. But pride becomes a hollow shield when our actions fail to reflect it.
Samba was bullied into silence — not for any crime, but for the crime of being born poor.
Jailaa carries the curse of her mother’s madness, condemned by a village that mistakes trauma for witchcraft.
And Fatima, well-cultured and soft-spoken, is forever unfairly judged through the lens of her mother’s misfortunes.
I can’t speak for how pure yesterday was, but this is the black community I find myself in today: a place where we inflict deep, unprovoked scars upon our own blood.
Depression: The Silent Alarm We Ignore
Societies shape human character through the values they choose to reward.
That is why the Chinese are economically disciplined. The Tibetan, spiritually grounded. The Amazonian, deeply contented.
Depression is real. Few in our modern world would dare deny its existence today. Yet we constantly misdiagnose its origin. The deepest roots of a person’s despair rarely grow from within the victim; they are planted, watered, and cultivated by their immediate circle.
And that is why bullying has become the new normal in our world of black today.
If you think bullying is just a verbal jab — you’ve already lost. The abuse we inflict through action is a hundred times heavier than any word.
Jutuneh’yaa. That single word broke the beautiful bond that allowed our grandparents to live in lasting peace and harmony.
The Bowl That Once Held Us Together
I am still a child of memory — lucky enough to have witnessed the twilight of an extraordinary era. I remember when fifteen to twenty different families shared a single rental compound. Each in their chambers, but all gathered around the same Aramissa bowly-baa at lunchtime.
What a profound beauty that was — a tradition now long dead, with little hope of return.
The spirit of the shared bowl has been crushed by arrogance.
Today, Omar and Tapha, born from the exact same womb, will not share a plate of beans for dinner. Why? Because Omar wears a suit to his white-collar bank job, while Tapha wears stained boots at the local car wash.
Even worse, the parents indulge in the same toxic belittlement. Instead of honoring honest labor, they point at the struggling son and dismiss him with a cold. And from the mouths — unlike those just two decades ago — we hear: “Tapha mang baraka.”
The Inverted Compass: What We Celebrate and What We Shame
Here is the raw, uncomfortable truth that society tries so desperately to hide, but which must be said out loud: this toxic culture of belittlement is the true root cause of the ever-growing “Back-way” epidemic.
We have warped our moral compass until our values are completely inverted.
Korka, a hardworking young man selling bitter-cola under the scorching heat at the Basse town centre, is dismissed by his own people as a “waste child.”
Bob, who fled illegally and peddles illicit drugs on the cold streets of Hamburg, is celebrated as a local hero the moment he sends money back home.
We mock the honest hustler at home and worship the ill-gotten gains of the diaspora, ignoring the reality of how it was earned. Through relentless belittlement, we drive our youth into desperation, pushing them to feel that their lives are meaningless unless they escape.
Us Blacks. Our society. Our double standards. Our relentless social cruelty.
We are to blame.
Not the waves. Not the distance. Not the West.
We are.
And until we heal our hearts and kill the spirit of Jutuneh’yaa, the ocean will continue to swallow our future.
TheHeraldWhistleBlower 