Strolling is a genius series of documentaries created by Londoner, Cecile Emeke. I heard about it earlier this year, but it wasn’t until last month that I was truly gobsmacked when I watched it for the first time.
I had just followed Cecile on Instagram, and finally remembered to watch it after I had seen an update that a new episode had been published. So there I was at work, in my own little corner, I plugged my head phones into my laptop and searched for the Strolling Series on You Tube. What came next, was definitely unexpected.
The title male feminists, crying, reparations… with a still of the male speaker drew my attention. At the time I had been thinking a lot about male feminists because of a project I’m working on, and naturally, I wanted to hear what he had to say. As some of us know there are Fake deeps (do watch it if you can, more finger snapping moments!) out there as Ms Emeke calls them; that is, those males who wear a façade to be allies in order to get their way with females. So I was stunned and thrilled by a lot of what Abraham(@abefeels) said.
Enough of my fan girl intro, watch this dope guy tell you what’s up!
Some of the outstanding quotes that got me snapping my fingers!
“You can hate a woman in so many ways without saying I hate you!”
“…men can’t cry. I’m one of the men who’s trying to get back to the gift of crying. When you split your soul so much, there’s some things you can’t do as a human anymore and part of that is crying. You can’t connect with people anymore because you’re this machine where it’s sex and money.” “Crying has such a stigma about it but that’s all bullocks to me. Like if you cry, you’re strong and you’re more whole and you have integrity, and if you can’t, your integrity has been taken away from you.”
Africa is in huge debt to the countries that stole from them, that is still colonialism. Can you imagine you’ve got a nice house with loads of nice things in it, someone comes into your house, steals from you, and then enslaves you, then leaves after taking all your shit, and then you now owe them money. And while you’re paying them back with crazy interest, they’re still stealing from you. You can’t win!”
“I think it’s really interesting that my hair is different and weird and strange and wild and exotic because my hair grows like this. No it’s not. My hair is freaking normal. Your hair is weird to me, it’s so straight and flat and weird colours and when it goes in the water, it sticks to your face. That’s weird to me. There’s a fascination that comes from the seed that is- you’re not fully human. It’s like wow, a unicorn, Can I touch your hair? What nice skin you have, bla bla bla. But it all comes under the same thing- you’re not human. You’re not as human as I am. You’re not the default.”
Dang! I’ve watched this almost 10 times now, I kid not!
What do you think?
