Cultures of Honesty

Some days I want to spark a revolution. Other days I just want to lounge by the pool with a good book and pose for the gram. Often, I’m dismayed that we can’t just put our minds together to repair the over-exploited countries of the world, but mostly I just want to help people pierce through the illusory veil of their lives that’s sheltering them from their blind spots and keeping them from living their limitless potential.

The contrast of these states both predicated on and crippled by a need for a culture of honesty. I think, more than anything else, this inability to foster a culture of honesty is our biggest social ill to date. It is why people like me burn through our passions like life force energy doesn’t eventually max out – because passion is the purest human expression of truth.

Exactly two weeks ago I walked out of the cinema from watching The Woman King, slightly buzzing like a thousand fireflies had taken over my body. I went in with no expectations, I exited with a heart filled with delight for the intimately epic expression of cinematic triumph I’ve seen all year. Directed by Gina Prince-Blythwood, this film is the first film focusing on Black women in rarefied positions of power, beauty, grandeur, and royalty, simultaneously moving like superheroes, and all based on true events.

In 1823, the Kingdom of Dahomey was in conflict with the Western influenced Oyo Empire. The latter wealthy and getting wealthier through their alignment with Europeans and participation in the slave trade. The Dahomey, trying to maintain sovereignty, battled Oyo for captives, using their secret weapon the Agojie; an all-female military force, known for their brutal force in war.

The Agojie also known as the Dahomey Amazons were real. They existed. They dominated. They reigned supreme.

And this film, decolonized the European tales told of this powerful woman army that reduces them to nothing more than barbaric slave traders. It did not absolve their actions but instead humanized these women warriors into the complexities of the time, the paradox of their position, and the sheer force of their willpower.

It showed me a culture of honesty.

One where nothing is stand-alone but rather a contexture of truths and inconveniences that make up the fabric of who we are – the good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly.

And while this film is receiving high praise for its storytelling, it is also pulling out of the woodworks those who don’t like complex truths. Those who don’t like to consider a point of view other than their own. Those lacking the maturity to recognize the history of the world isn’t centered around them.

There is a quote often attributed to Wiston Churchill “history is written by the victors”. And it’s this idea that has allowed North American students to be universally taught that Colombus “found” the Americas despite millions of people already living there when he arrived. It’s also miseducated masses that the history of Black peoples begins with the slave trade and not the multiple African kingdoms that existed long before they were kingdoms anywhere else.

And because schooling has been marketed as education, this limited foundation plays a huge role in the inability to drop unconscious biases. And the struggle to think critically and holistically when we’re presented with truths and facts that vary from what we thought was absolute.

Cultivating a culture of honesty is not easy. It requires radical self-leadership… the audacity to state the facts and speak the truth. The courage to be disliked, and the fortitude to go at it alone. But I deeply believe, that if each of us sought solely to stand for truth based on facts, we will get there.

As we continue to collectively journey into this period of feminine leadership and women in power, I am reminded that Dahomey Amazons were not simply a military but a sisterhood. Not just warriors but divine protectors. Not just ruthless but the heartbeat of a culture. The embodiment of a woman’s strength, her wrath and her divinity all wrapped into one.

We don’t need to start a revolution, but we should all do our part.

The question for you this week is “where can you do a little bit more?”

The invitation is for you to consider where you’re not telling the whole truth. Observe where you don’t know the facts and walk towards reconciling your candor.

'til next Sunday!Z.