COLUMNIST: YAO AFRA YAO

Let's just say the writer is a writer--and leave it at that. . More The writer's biography is whatever the author pens. Black history has turned a fresh new page; our everyday lives is the re-writing of this history. Bent on writing a great one for our generations to come—this is why the writer attempts writing.

Yao Afra Yao attempts introspection as best as Yao can. And this introspection, Yao being Black, finds itself a whole lot of times, into Black. Yao being human, this introspection finds itself, too, into humanity. Let the reader be introspective enough to not see any bit of Yao Afra Yao’s as hatred. Let that word be reserved to serve, truly and exclusively, its purpose. That word risks degeneration when thrown about aimlessly.

To restore balance in the world we have inherited, there has to be some adjustments. Adjustments can sting. Let’s write through the sting anyway—for that higher purpose, a world of balance. Inequality hurts everyone—the advantaged, for one’s hard work risks overlooking, because one is perceived to have had an advantage from the very start; and of course, for the disadvantaged, one’s whole existence risks an underestimation and also because… ‘disadvantaged’—need the writer say more?

It is not hatred; it's restoration. A sense of self-worth is owed the Black race; a sense of understanding, the White. A sense of recognition is owed the rest of the world—things ought not be seen from just a Black and White perspective, there’s more to that out there—more colours, and realities existing outside the confines of colours, masking similar experiences just like ours. It is not an uprooting, but the accommodation of more seeds—on the same plane, we all ought to be. We are essentially all same, let this agreement not be in words only, but in actions too.

Makafui Aikins writes facts the best way Makafui can. In the contemplation over:
a. The Black race;
b. Humanity…

…Makafui, though Black, contemplates humanity first. Of course, these distinctions are self-defeating, for Black is human too. I guess that’s what happens when one tries to break into two a people who essentially are one: Yao Afra is Makafui Aikins; Makafui, Yao. Makafui Aikins is African, so Africa it is, in almost every write-up.

The writer usually is a writer—yearns for more than a 1000-word limit, yet writing about oneself is hard. Hence, this autobiography won’t even make it to half of that.

An educational background in Law and Business, yet a broader self-reading background in a growing lot of things; an unapologetic reading-addict, the writer may have just read your works too.

The underlying fact to this all is that things written by Yao Afra Yao will, as our friend described elsewhere, self-destruct after one hundred years of existence—by then this balance written about would have happened, and a continuous existence of words to that regard may be regarded a tautology—redundant. Makafui Aikins, on the other hand, is good for the long stay—for the most part.

Yao Afra Yao is a pseudonym.

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