I is free, you?!

Last month has seen a lot of commemorative events to mark the abolition of slavery, but I would argue that mental enslavement remains and is even more debilitating. "Free your mind and the rest will follow"are the words to the eponymous En Vogue song and we have a long way to go in this regard.

Despite my 2 degrees and the FLAs (2) and TLAs (1) that I can legitimately append to my name, there will always be some 2-bit person who will make me feel black. My racial radar is always on red alert so when I know a person is being racist, I give them a verbal dressing down - I've paid my dues and I won't tolerate such ignorance.

I was educated in the UK and Africa, and have worked in Africa, the UK and the US. My experiences have taught me to celebrate Africa, the good, the bad and the downright ugly. I have finally attained mental emancipation and do not aspire to the culturally barren materialism of the American dream. It therefore sticks in the craw to see the obsequiousness with which we continue to treat those of a lighter skin hue, in Africa.

A holocaust that happened 60+ years ago is commemorated at every turn - we are continuously extorted not to forget. Germany has paid its dues and continues to apologise for the role it played. German and Swiss firms that benefitted from forced labour during that time have paid compensation, yet the British government can't even muster an apology for an even greater holocaust that they actively promoted. When slavery was abolished, it was only plantation owners and others like the Church of England and the Royal family who were deemed worthy of compensation.

People have argued that slavery was legal at the time as if that makes everything ok. Well, the Nazis amended the laws to make the persecution of Jews legal so does that make what happened at Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, Sachsenhausen alright?!

Today, slavery's horrific legacy is all too evident in the Caribbean, the UK and the US. One of its more chilling objectives was to make the slaves relinquish their African identity and the first step in this process was achieved by flogging the slave until they accepted the name bestowed on them by their massa. The Church of England went a step further and branded the slaves, lest they forget who owned them.

When I asked a friend of mine what he thought of Amistad, he sagely remarked that, "the oppressor can never tell the true story of the oppressed" - true dat!!