Page 48 - Start Up_Genesis

CAPITALISE ON

YOUR ANGER

Staff Writer

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he world is full of so many angry, black people, that the word ‘anger’
has almost become synonymous with them. We are angry that our
Tfemininity is cheapened to a weakness used to exploit us. We are
angry that our masculinity is defined by the very success that eludes us. We
are angry that no matter our best efforts, we feel like rats; trapped in a maze
or on a Ferris wheel… going round but getting nowhere.

The cost of living is sickeningly high and the majority of citizens are barely
surviving. Money is hard to come by and when it does, it’s paltry. So many
marriages are failing that separation and divorce have become the norm
rather than the exception. This breakdown in the traditional family unit does
little to assuage our heinous socio-economic reality. Our lives are symbolic
of a people who are fighting to stay afloat in a dark sea of never-ending
turbulence. Every morning, we sit in heavy traffic and join the long tail of
motorists crawling along to various destinations in search of ‘hope.’ It’s easy
to understand why a large number of people are succumbing to anger and
depression.

We feel trapped by our gender, our sexuality, our blackness, our youth, our
inexperience, and our families whose legacy is so ordinary, we are just another
Banda or Simukoko or Mulenga. We are angry that the hope we need lies in
the hands of unscrupulous politicians, vicious authority figures, and a God
famous for promising a comeback that’s taking thousands of years.

There’s a lot to be angry about. Humanity is being stripped of everything that
we need it to be; selfless and trustworthy. It is a world where we are buoyed
up not by our neighbor but our own self-reliance; no matter how tattered it
may be. It is a world where the boy who cries ‘wolf’ is ignored not because
the village is tired of his pranks but because he is just one more ‘nobody’
standing alone on a hill and screaming to a people who have blinded and
deafened themselves to his miserable cries.
Twenty something-year old Grace* has been angry most of her life. Her
parents had a chaotic, dysfunctional marriage that sealed what would be
chaotic lives for all their children. Grace and her siblings endured love gone
Photographer: Alex Ng’andu sour between the two most important people in their world.
Model: Ammaar Versi
Styled & Dressed by: Aurora Bella Collections
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