While Many Kenyans are busy expressing their feelings and condemning George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis , United States of America. I cannot help but wonder why some of us here in Kenya are busy fighting racism in the USA but in some of our families, no one is allowed to marry from some tribes.
Yes what happened to Floyd should have not happened in the first place but it did. Protests have been erupting since and as usual Kenyans were not left behind in expressing their feeling regarding the incident.
A clip has emerged of a Kenyan man back in the US, telling the Americans to chant in Swahilli ’Haki Yetu’. A chant we normally use when we demonstrate.
#Marekani: “Tunaweza kusema kwa Kiswahili…Haki Yetu, Haki Yetu, Haki Yetu…”
Amesikika mmoja ya waandamanaji akiwahimiza wengine kudai haki ya watu weusi kwa lugha ya Kiswahili katika maandamano yanayoendelea huko Marekani kufuatia kuuawa kwa George Floyd. pic.twitter.com/tJPCh9L9tf
— Serengeti Post (@SerengetiPost) May 31, 2020
There are also other Kenyans that took to social media platforms to express their anger and disappointment after Floyd’s death including the now famous Mr. Alex Nderitu who took to twitter to show his anger.
Although we may have our reasons to not marry from other tribes, I do not think any of the reasons could be a good one. We Kenyans forget that tribalism has been a serious headache and many couples that wished to get married could not, only because they were not from the same tribes and their families would not allow it.They say ‘ Love is Blind’,and people tend to fall in love with people from different tribes or communities and because of stereotyping tribes,they fail to get married. Some tribes are stereotyped to be a communities of thieves,some said to consists of only witches while others are refered to as outright lazy.
It is not okay to brand people in a certain manner and then call out racists as that is just hypocrisy on another level.
During election time,most of us vote for aspirants because they come from the same communities with us regardless of their manifesto and past history.
- The governor’s life is in danger-Mike Sonkos security withdrawn
- Moses Kuria questions why Huduma number is not used to tackle Coronavirus
- US President Donald Trump asks governors to consider reopening schools
This does show that us Kenyans choose to tackle one problem and ignore the other? in this case did we decide to see and talk about a racism incident that did not even happen in our country and not talk about how tribalism has been a menace to us?
We just celebrated the country’s 57th year after we gained independence and should really think hard about what we should change to be a better country.
