La Familia: my friendly view on family ties

Last year a man interrupted a conversation I was having with two of my friends and said this amongst other things:

"Family is the fabric of society"

We were discussing politics, religion and where we fit in all of this. I remember distinctly. We were still yet to cast our votes for the national elections. A discussion on power was quite relevant in the midst of all of this.

That day We threw quite a number of questions at each other. Do we as the electorate have power? Do we want to use whatever power we have? Do we desire to have more power on our country's affairs? These questions underpinned our conversation. Such matters I will write about, but not today. Not now.

I am rather seized by the statement the gentleman who interrupted us said about family. Is family really the fabric of society? Is family really the backbone of the society I find myself in? Wouldn't that assume that the success of any given society lies within the success of its family units? Should I really be contemplating about this like this? What of my family? How has my own family contributed to my social belonging? What does it even mean to call family the "fabric of society"?

I know it takes a village to raise a child. I have seen the truth behind that saying. The village instils more than just teaching a child how to walk and talk. The village helps raise a child moulding the child's inborn sense of justice. The village instils a moral code for the child to be cognitive of as she grows up. The village teaches her about community and values undefined in even the most outsourced modern libraries. The village gives a child a sense of identity- she knows she is different. She is proud to be who she is. She has the village behind her back. Her family has done well to clothe her with that honour.

But not everyone is raised by a village. Not everyone has been raised consciously by their parents. Some are in society without a background of love and support. Some cry when the nostalgia takes over when they think about how they 'shouldn't' be alive. Some have really seen the devil and made deals with it to be alive today.

I have to really ask though:
Is blood really thicker than water?

When water can turn into wine, what good is blood? What is family when there are friends who stick closer than them? What term do we ascribe to a family that isn't friendly with you? Why is it that there is an obligation we owe to certain individuals simply because we share the same 'blood'? There comes a time to truly conceptualize what it means to be family.

In the generation we live in, the only family photo albums I foresee showing the next generation, are the galleries on my phone and laptop.(let that sink in for a minute)

Its time to get to grips with that bond which is thicker than blood.
There is a bond which does not claim loyalty based on natural descent but by virtue of acts of compassion shown in the time of need, distress and sorrow.
There are friends who bare secrets and are there when it mattered the most.
To those friends I call family.

These relationships are not tracked by blood. These relationships have kept society the strongest. For we do not get to choose our family...but we do get to choose who becomes our family. I truly hold the latter in higher esteem.

I love my friends, I truly do. The ones who aren't afraid to 'fuck up' in front of me. The ones who play their cards openly and identify with my struggle. Those who call me by my name. Friends then become family...and the only family which stays is the one fulfilling the attributes of a friend.

Do I do away with the family community as traditionally known? NO. But what good are relatives who aren't good to you? Why do we subject ourselves to regimes which don't really enhance true governance in our lives? I mean...what does good is a fabricated family next to a genuine friend?

We begin to rather accept that the true fabric behind the social cohesion we experience is the honour, respect and love friends have for each other. For if he is my brother, than he should be my friend.

Black lives are more than just numbers

I guess what I am sitting with are the effects of pondering over things for too long.
I guess that's one crucial reason why this becomes a convenient outlet for me.
And in the event that these conversations yield no fruit, would they have been in vain?
Certainly not.
Not IF I have managed to unsettle others in the process.
Not if I'm not alone in this.
For I do not want to be unsettled alone.
I'm unsettled by the numbers on our lives.
The numbers which replace our lives when we die, unsettle me.
I am more unsettled by the number being done on us while we still live.
I am one who truly cannot settle with this.
I'm unsettled that many are still made to only amount to data in a stats report.
It's troubling.
That the value of our lives are reduced to black pawn pieces used in a chess game.
Except when we fall, we do not get to 'play again'... no, for they don't have the power to put the life back into our empty bodies.
The numbers are dehumanizing.
Where do we even begin unpacking how behind every number there is an infant that becomes an orphan or a spouse losing a bread winner? The dark figures of crime further forming a dark cloud over the perception we have of ourselves, troubles.
When the poverty is inhumane along with the racism affecting us.
(I too want to ask: what is the price of a black man's life?)
Surely we are more than just numbers.

I write as one who does not believe that this can be over iterated.
There is an urgency for conscious dialogues in our circles of engagement.
We are more than just figures. We are more than just variables.
I feel these are the flowers we need to give each other while we are still living.
Black lives matter too.
The fear of just amounting to a statistic grips those who know they form part of a generation. It's startling.
Though expressed differently, we do see it in the life-long concerns people have in building their names, and the legacies they want to leave behind.
These are noble ambitions and worthwhile endeavours.
Such accolades of life cannot be fully expressed in a number.


It is the aspirations of the fallen young ones who died revolting which unsettles me the most.
How Hector Pieterson also had ambitions, dreams and hopes.
He was human.
He was a person.
He was a priceless embodiment of sacred life.
Him and his classmates...and they were many.
Their lives mattered too.
Numbers will never justify the meaning of their lives lost.

At this stage, there is a social war against a capitalism that knows no morality.
There is a need to have the statistics humanized again.
An audience needs to be cogniscant of the reality that the masses are human beings too.
Both the casualties of the past and the present matter.
No human life should just amount to a mere statistic.
I am hoping for empathy on the part of those who encounter accounts of lost lives from now on.
ALTHOUGH the media may report 'numbers', we should perceive deaths for what they are: a plethora of human experiences snuffed from the face of the earth.
It's axiomatic for me to point out how the masses today still live in standards below par... and how behind every number there's a family that is crying.
It really is unsettling.

This leaves me further unsettled when I think what meaning this highlights regarding the sacrifices made in the struggle. How land is not the only thing apartheid took away from us.
How the most precious of lost gifts are innocent black lives we cannot claim back.

This unsettles me, and I write about it... hoping it unsettles you too.