Toxic Beauty
Cyberbullying is a pervasive issue in today’s digital age, with far-reaching consequences for mental health. The constant harassment and humiliation inflicted online can erode a person’s self-esteem and sense of worth, exacerbating existing mental health conditions or precipitating new ones. We share why this needs to stop in this podcast. This conversation was first posted in article form on the Shades of Us blog. You can read it – and other articles we have written – by visiting shadesofusafrica.org. At the end of this podcast, there are ways to reach us if you would like to discuss this further. Facebook: Shades of Us Twitter: Shades of Us LinkedIn: Shades of Us Instagram: Shades of Us Website: Shades of Us Vlog: Shades of Us Africa Image:
Here is Why You should Subscribe to My Channel…Even though it is a Mess Now
My Vlog. Sigh. I started my video log in early 2016 as a way to put a face to my online persona and hopefully reach more people. But it wasn’t until I got a rude awakening at the end of 2015 that I began to think of my vlog. Settle in. I’ve got gist. I was a television presenter at a budding television station in the North Eastern part of Nigeria. I had been working as a radio presenter in the same corporation when I was invited for a screen test for the breakfast show of the station. At that point, it was the opportunity of a life time. You know how you don’t know you wantsomething but as soon as it is given to you, you immediately know that is what you need? Yeah! That was me! I was gleefully nervous but eager to try. After ten minutes of screening, they figured out that I could read the prompter and follow the direction of the camera; like a natural. I was told to resume work on Monday. Since it was a show that handled topical national issues, I went in with a brand of presentation that was heavy on getting to the fact of the matter. I researched each topic and prepared questions designed for context and clarity. I also had a penchant for asking tough questions; not necessarily because I wanted to be controversial but because I wanted to really know what was happening. I believed that if I understood the issue, then my audience would too. What was different about my style was that I didn’t defer to powerful people; even though I was dirt poor and could easily be crushed. If I didn’t like a person or a story been spun, you would know! And I didn’t like a lot of politicians! So, many times, I came out as brusque. You have to understand that I was working in a community where women were expected to be mild mannered and have little or no opinions. With me, that was impossible. I maintained my professionalism – whatever that was at that time – but if you think of a slightly toned down Maupe Ogun, you had my TV personality. From Left to Right: Me, Aaron Isaac and representatives of the Adamawa State Electricity Distribution Company on Safiya Breakfast Show. In October 2015, I had a run in with a top politician which led to my removal from the show. Okay…maybe I had a couple of those but this one had smoke coming out of the man’s ears. Let me put this into context. There were four of us who anchored the show. Two of them were mild mannered and very courteous to guests. Almost too courteous, I thought. The last person was so eager to be controversial that he deliberately sought out taboo topics on air. If he was doing it for knowledge sake, it could have been understood. But he was doing it for laughs and he and I didn’t work well together. Even though that was the case, Mr. Controversial and I were paired a lot on the show. The day we had the run in that broke the camel’s back was terse and one where I kept wondering why we were on the show together. We had a guest who was from a royal family in Adamawa State and an opposition political party stalwart. We were supposed to be talking about basic governance in the State and region. The show was going awry with some of the questions being asked by Mr. Controversial. I didn’t feel they had any baring on the topic of discussion. Unbeknownst to me, there was a lot of bad blood between our guest and many other powerful people in the community and those questions were deliberately asked to irk them. As soon as we got off air, we were told that we had set off a couple of fires and molten magma was heading our way. I didn’t know what it was that I had supposedly done, so I was cool. Plus, I cross-checked my questions and saw that none of them was trigger worthy beyond regular fact checking. My co-anchor was skittish but acting macho. The consensus was that we shouldn’t have asked certain questions. They went on and on. All the talk didn’t come from our producers, so I couldn’t be bothered. I went home…and missed the magma. Turns out all hell broke loose, drama was delivered, people were threatened, powerful men spread their wings and lots of begging followed to soothe frayed nerves. Then the hammer came. We were to be booted off the show. I received a call a day later informing me of the decision. When I went to the office the day after my removal, I saw that our replacement was so politically correct, that it bordered on arse kissing. Was this what they wanted me to be doing? Should I stroke the egos of powerful men to stay afloat? I scoffed! At that point, I knew that even if I was called back to the show, I wouldn’t do it. I neededto be true to myself but even more than that, I could not kiss anyone’s arse. I am too proud and pig-headed for that. Interviewing Professor Oluremi Sonaiya and Abdullahi Bulla, 2015 Nigerian presidential aspirant and National Treasurer (respectively) of KOWA Party This was when I decided that I was going to leave the station. Many things had come together to make me jaded about my stay in Adamawa State and I just wanted an opportunity to start over. I thought of going back to Kaduna State but remembered why I left in the first place. (I will find time to share that story, but not today). Then I thought about Abuja and wondered if it was the town for me. My mother lived in Abuja, there was opportunity for creatives and I would be close to home (Kaduna) if
Unveiling the New Shades of Us
SZA with the moodCredit: Giphy Hello You! Let me formally introduce Shades of Us. I cannot believe that it has been almost four years since I started blogging and I never described in any post why Shades of Us exists. I have said it in a million and one ways but never formally said, ‘Oi! This baby girl is here and this is why she was conceived!’ But…that is about to change right now! Stay with me. (In Sam Smith’s voice.) Shades of Us is a media company discussing social issues affecting Africa, Africans and people of African descent, with a view to facilitating open, honest, unfiltered and unbiased conversations that leads to proper introspection, acceptance of strengths and weaknesses and change of perspective towards the greater goal of a new, refined, and stronger black continent and people. Shades of Us was founded on April 28, 2014, by Ramatu Ada Ochekliye (whoot whoot! That is my name!), to address dysfunctional social issues peculiar to black people living in Africa or descendants of migrants who may have voluntarily moved to other continents or who may have been forced, through human trafficking and slavery, to leave. Originally, Shades of Us was called Shades of Brown, with ‘…brown’ representing the convergent color of black skin tone and the earth’s richness. After much reflection, I knew the name had to be changed. First, because Shades of Brown was already popular in many countries and for varying products and services and secondly, getting my brand to stick out from that number was going to be nearly impossible. I discussed with my sisters and friends and we were at the point where using my name for was the most favored option. The reason was a no brainer; I was the only person in the whole world with my name, promoting the brand would be promoting myself and it would have just been easier to get the recognition I wanted. We had almost finally decided on this when I took a step and analyzed the name. I love my name to the moon and back but I wanted to create something that was bigger than me. I wanted something that could grow into a shared vision with the people who felt connected to my stories. So we brainstormed again and came up with Shades of Us. The founding principle of Shades of Us is the belief that all human beings are equal, have the same basic human rights and should be afforded the same respect and opportunities that guarantees the growth and development of each individual. Based on this founding principle, Shades of Us is subscribed to all thirty articles of the Universal Declaration of human rights and works towards promoting these rights for every human being but especially for every black person. Beyond the human rights declaration however, Shades of Us has adopted nine of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals as focal points of the change to implement. These goals include no poverty, zero hunger, good health and wellbeing, quality education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, reduced inequalities, peace, justice and strong institutions and being open for partnership for the goals. These goals translate to Goals 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 16 and 17 of the sustainable development goals, which we believe should be the bible of development for all peoples of the world. Of these goals, we extol the virtues of gender equality and reduced inequalities more because we believe that they are springboards to achieving all the other goals we have adopted. We are especially biased towards the issues that affect women and children. This is because we believe that globally, black and brown women and children have been the most disenfranchised in all indices of human development and so, we believe that speaking and acting against societal norms and ills that predominantly affect women and children would redress years of inequality and the drawbacks associated with it. Phew! The last three paragraphs were so serious, right?! I almost felt like I was talking to the United Nations in a bid to get funding for the project. That is in the offing by the way. We have so much work to do! Anyway, you may have noticed I described Shades of Us as a company, right? Well…because it finally is! Whoot whoot! Dancing the gwara gwara! Our registration came through this month after months of debating whether this was the route we wanted to take or not. But…we cannot continue to put out all this original content and hope to get that paper if we are not serious! So… we knew we had to become a business so that we can grow. Even one of the religious scriptures talks about moving from milk to solid food in a parable about maturity. And a great prophet once said, ‘Jungle don mature’. We are that jungle! So our business is open! The question you may ask is, ‘what do you offer?’ The answer is simple. Storytelling. We tell stories for Africa. We mean this literally and as a pidgin statement of exaggeration. Of course we have various methods of disseminating our stories to engender discussion. 1. Blog:Primarily started as a site to air personal grievances, Shades of Us has grown to a magazine of articles, in-depth interviews, news and fictional stories from our writers – and again, that is me, myself and I with each personalities that has a mind of their own – and other writers. 2. Podcast: The Shades of Us podcast is called The Review. We discuss music and movies put out by black people and share our thought on whether they are great, good, subpar or horrible. 3. Video log: This is very personal because it is where we, as Africans say, ‘show ourselves’. And because we are expanding this year, we are introducing new aspects to the company. They include; 1. Films:
On Bad Fathers, Body Shaming and Eminem’s New Song Featuring Beyoncé
Hey hey! So this is coming a bit late in the day but it is here! How was your week? We hope it was as full and fun as ours was? ‘What did we do?’ you ask. A lot…even if we say so our self. We reviewed Eminem’s new song featuring Beyoncé (Yes! Beyoncé!) It is called ‘Walk on Water’ and the video just dropped today, November 20, 2017. So we got in quick, right? And we know you might be wondering why we were doing a review of Eminem’s song since Shades of Us is about Africa, Africans and people of African descent – black and brown people basically – but Eminem is an honorary black person! He is one of us y’all! Any hoo, we also reviewed Ride Along starring Ice Cube and Kevin Hart on The Review. It was lit! And from the blog, we shared posts about dealing with body shaming, fatherhood(or the lack of it) and the fourth installment of our Here Comes the Bride series. We really should finish that! We promised to conclude the Long Distance series and put up a new video but…life happened. We feel ashamed but our hands were really tied. They will come up this week. We promise! So here is everything we shared last week. From the blog; Why Athletes Need Formal Education; Here Comes the Bride 4; The Foreign Certificate Syndrome; Dealing with Body Shaming; Why We Support the Eradication of Poverty; The World’s Worst Fathers On The Review; That’s What I Like By Bruno Mars; Barbershop: The Next Cut; The Birth of a Nation; Ride Along; For Colored Girls; Walk on Water by Eminem featuring Beyoncé; And from the YouTube channel; The Launch; The Un-Invited Wedding Guest; My body, Your Problem; We also celebrated the Nigerian Bobsled team that qualified for the Winter Olympics happening in Russian in 2018. They are officially the first team in African to qualify for the Winter Olympics and they did it all by themselves. What an inspiration! This week! We already promised that Long Distance will come up but we can go further to say that you can read the final edition on Tuesday at 10am on the blog! Excited? We sure are! As usual, there will be two episodes of The Review this week and tentatively, a new video. Ei! We can see your skepticism! We will try! Ha! So much pressure. Any hoo…that was a summary of last week and a preview of what this week would look like. What topic do you want us to discuss? Share your ideas in the comment section and we will get to it! So…have yourself a great week! Thank you. Always Excited, Ramatu Ada Ochekliye, Founder, Shades of Us
On Getting Older, Future Families, Creating Records and Adapting to Culture Shocks
Hi people! How have you been?! So starting this week, we want to try something. Thing is, we tried before but got quite lazy and it never hit the ground running. We know; shame! Anyway, starting today, we will be doing an overview of all the posts we shared the previous week and what the new week will feel like. Excited?! So let’s get to it. Last week, we started by reminding you that you are beautiful as you are and went on to produce two new podcasts. We reviewed Arlissa’s Getting older and Darnell Martin’s, Cadillac Records. They had a central theme of finding yourself and we hope you caught that. We went on to share two posts from our Dear Future Family series, with focus on letters to the future sonand daughter. We also shared our newest video log on adapting to culture shocks. You can find an overview of all the posts shared below; Dear Future Family: Letter to My son; The Review: Getting Older by Arlissa; Adapting to Culture Shocks; Dear Future Family: Letter to My Daughter; The Review: Rick Famuyiwa’s Dope; Dear Feminists, This too Shall Pass; For My Super Fans; The Review: Cadillac Records; The Unseen Woman; Meet the Amazing 18 Year Old Championing Children’s Causes; The Review: Wait for Me; Dealing with Marriage Pressure; Etiquette for Semi-Formal Meetings; Long Distance 3; The Review: With The Ring; When Bad Things Happen to Good People; The Review: Joromi by Simi; Shades of Us: The Return. So that was our week last week. This week, we will be sharing the last installment of Long Distance. That story needs to end y’all…and after more than two years. Ha! We need to do better! This week also, we are supporting the #KickOffKaduna campaign for under-privileged kids in Kaduna State, Nigeria, and we will tell you why. The Review returns this week and we have a Hausa song that we will be discussing. What movie do you want to see reviewed? Hit us up in the comment section and we will get to it. And, there mightbe a new video log this week! Fingers crossed. Make sure to follow Shades of Us across social media. We are EVERYWHERE! Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Google+. So if you aren’t following, you are wrong! (We kid….or do we?) Any hoo…we wish you a great week ahead. Remember that you matter…no matter what the noise outside says. Hugs and Kisses, Ramat.
Etiquette for Semi-Formal Meetings
Hey! Hey! Ramat is in the building! So by now, you must have heard I did a post about what turned out to be a horrible meeting BECAUSE I didn’t get food. I don’t play with my food at all! But more than that, I believe that etiquette is important! There are certain things people should and shouldn’t do and I dished on it in the new video log. The video is called ETIQUETTE FOR SEMI-FORMAL MEETINGS. Watch the new video below! Whoot whoot!
