Olenoko: Fresh Vistas on Africa, the Diaspora & the World

"And this is how a simple, fun, well-intentioned favorite-book exercise plunges into a minefield of complexity and stress for one person on the team." When my colleague asked that each member of our group submit a list including their favorite novel for his 2017 summer reading blogpost, six out of nine of us jumped at the task with alacrity, supplying the list within mere hours of the request. I was not one of them.

So, having PAUSED, what exactly does it mean to R-O-A-R? Re-education. Organization. Action. Results. Here is a start. (The resources below have been curated for you by Olenoko.) RE-EDUCATION Sometimes what we already know can coexist with new information. Sometimes, we have to unlearn false narratives to make room for true ones. We simply need to be open to what we don't know.

Amid trauma, life goes on. We are driven to rise and take care of those who need us, to honor the memory of those taken from us, to live and breathe for one more day. But this coronavirus crisis has given us pause. Pause to take in the felling, over a few months, of tens of thousands of our fellow human beings by a viral enemy as insidious as it is vicious...and to realize that this killing is not indiscriminate. Pause to watch, for an excruciating 8 minutes and 46 seconds, the ruthless murder...

Black History Month (BHM) was gone in a flash, but not without its noteworthy moments – some laudable, some laughable, and others downright deplorable. Let’s take a quick turn about those not-so-fair grounds and then consider how we who have not had “so much winning that [we are] bored with winning” can get a little more. Among the BHM moments worthy of praise were...

Thank you for sharing your parents with us for eight long years. Thank you for allowing us to watch the special, intimate moments among you that should have been yours alone. Thank you for every time we altered their mood, and you had to deal with it. Thank you for letting us crowd your memories...

Today I met one. The nicest, sweetest, gentlest Idahoan woman who spoke to me about God and her church, and then, when I told her about how bad the traffic was getting in Accra (though it was still worse in Lagos), politely asked me if we had vehicles there. "So, do you have... I'm sure you have, but... Do you have vehicles?" It was not until she had dropped me off and I had walked down the winding path and seen my reflection in the tinted doors of the library that it dawned on me...

"Oh my, I love your accent!" Heard more times than I can count. And the other day, on an introductory conference call with my new colleagues, reference was made -- as ever -- to my "British accent” and its supposed ability to earn an 80% premium on any PR services rendered. I simply laughed and said, "If only!"...