Your Face In The Mirror

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Call me simplistic but common sense tells me what I see in the mirror, is the most beautiful creation in the world. I’m not Jesse B. Semple, a character created by Langston Hughes, who brought Harlem to the world through his short stories, essays and poetry. Jesse B. Semple is too formal so, the author simply called him ‘Simple’ a guy who lived around 125th Street, and other Harlem streets. Harlem is in New York, U.S.A. for the uninitiated.

Simple loves himself. I also love myself because the mirror tells me so. I used make-up very late in life, because of friends. They said it tames a shiny face. Julia, my friend in London also wanted to pluck my eyebrows. She pulled one hair and I screamed. She never got to the second one. Such pain! It was also because I didn’t see the point of tampering with a perfect product, that is me. If you know me, you will testify that I still have both eyebrows I saved from Julia.

Call me simplistic, but I don’t understand how some people don’t like what they see in the mirror. Some go to the extent of going online and saying it is lying. What I see in the mirror today, explains the radiance in the face of every hand that shook mine when mom or dad said: This is my daughter. They never failed to point out the resemblance with my father, but that’s another blog, for another day.

I do not understand how people hate themselves to the point of disputing what is in the mirror. Self-identity yes, because the man on the bus and the woman driving the bus might think I’m a ‘kaffir’ as we were called in South Africa. African Americans were called worse. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to offend anybody who doesn’t want to be identified with Africa. One caller said: I’m brown, not black. Self-identity, I respect that. It means they’ll never visit Africa because they’ll be waiting for a taxi in Cape Town and somebody will tell them a long story in Xhosa. Someone in Abuja, will complain about the national soccer team in Yoruba, one of the Nigerian languages.

It’s because of the mirror. The caller that said she’s brown not black, maybe looks like millions of people who speak Xhosa or Yoruba. Call me simplistic but the mirror is the truth.

Nonqaba waka Msimang

Blogger Without Borders

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