Blacka
Storythms
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
Whether through self hate,
fear,
victimhood,
nihilism,
or black consciousness,
we live a lie.
We live a lie
because our self hate,
fear,
and victimhood
are reactions
to a lie.
And the reaction to a lie
is also a lie.
“Black consciousness”
is a lie
because it seeks,
through our cultural stories,
our achievements
and our history
to refute a lie.
And the reaction to a lie
is always a lie.
These reactions and defenses,
are addressing the lie
that says,
that we are inferior,
that we are less,
that we are loveless.
That we are the other;
the mother
of misery.
That we are
of some other God
that nobody knows about,
or cares about.
If you don’t remember anything
of what I just said,
remember this.
Always remember this.
This is truth.
All beings
are one being.
We are all pieces
of that one being.
You are equal
to any human
who has ever lived
and ever will live.
We come
from the same place,
the same space.
We have one face.
It is the summit
of ignorance
to believe that another
is lesser,
or greater
than you.
Make that your creed.
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
“You have come,”
he said,
and I knew
there and then
that I was home.
I never went back
to my father’s house,
and he never came
to look for me.
And I knew
that he knew
where I was.
It is a sweltering day in a village in Guyana when a fourteen-year-old decides to journey to meet his grandfather, Blacka, for the first time. As he arrives in Buxton, the teen already knows that Blacka has been the source of his attorney father’s misery about his blackness for what seems an eternity. But it is not until the grandson and grandfather finally meet for the first time that the teen realizes he has arrived home.
In a collection of short tales shared in rap-like verse, Owen Ifill highlights the rhythms of a Guyana village as a teenager is mentored by his grandfather, Blacka, while learning lessons, confronting his fears, developing into his own person, and attempting to successfully navigate through a variety of challenges.
Blacka is a volume of rhythmically told stories that leads others down an imaginative path as a young man immerses himself in the culture of a village in Guyana.
About the Author
Owen Ifill is an internal medicine and addiction medicine physician who hails from Buxton, Guyana. He has three previous publications that all explore universal and existential themes. Ifill resides with his wife and daughter in New York.