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of peculiar flowers/like sound of laughter/fluid in words you could spell/only after lettering down/libations on territories/virgin with mystic bites/of your footsteps/creating gardens/of hope beyond tales

Thursday, March 12, 2020

Measuring the Beloved Ghanaian Sense of Humor against Actual Sense


Ghanaians are emotionally careless. I don’t mean to be insulting; I am Ghanaian and proudly so. One of the things I love about us is our sense of humor. We are able to defuse potentially chaotic situations by making fun of each other. If it were ever true that laughter is medicine to the soul, then our souls must have benefited immensely from our ability to laugh, even at our pain. However, the human capacity to draw lines is one of the ways we may lay claims to superiority over animals. We are not like cats who eat their newborns, neither are we like dogs who can’t wait for their own pups to grow so they can mate with them. We are humans, Ghanaians, a society appended with the label of friendliness.

We are a laughing nation 

Ghanaians like to laugh and why shouldn’t we? Yet, our eagerness to laugh at everything is erasing the lines of duty and tastefulness in our society. Not everything should be made a joke of. As humans, it is basic to understand this. Another person’s pain or shame should not be prolonged just for the fun of it. No, you are not ‘just joking,’ you are being lesser than you are meant to be. Our ability to make light of stressful situations is one of our shared strengths, but sacrificing our sense of duty to care for each other and to protect those who are vulnerable for laughs is simply irresponsible and at odds with basic human decency. We laugh ourselves into forgiving corrupt politicians who keep depriving us of our basic human needs. We laugh aloud at false preachers on TV forcing poison down the throats of so many people. We laugh over social media fights and gory fistfights, sharing screenshots and videos to the sound of the latest hit song. We laugh at public official after public official who say things like “ↄpepepeepee,” “No aba ba sԑ,” “Citizens, not spectators!”

The most consistently productive sector in the Ghanaian economy is the joke manufacturing sector. And what’s wrong with that? Nothing, except when we laugh at a JHS teacher having sex with his student on a kitchen stool. Except when we ‘memeify' the pain of a teenager who has had his heart broken by a girl and make it go viral. When an undergraduate student slaps her boyfriend with her charley wotey, that is simply not the time to laugh. Abusive relationships, the embarrassment or pain of children and young people shouldn’t become the raw materials with which we boost our collective aspiration to be funny. We must regain our sense of balance. Sexual, physical, emotional or verbal abuse is definitely not something to laugh at. An adult in distress or in pain shouldn’t be an object of mockery. Emotionally mature people empathize, they do not orchestrate or prolong the pain of others just for the fun of it. We should move to protect and help vulnerable and hurt people find strength and healing. 

Served all day long; chilled-cruel Ghanaian humor 

Laughter can be violent. Sure, we have used humor to get out of many uncomfortable situations. In fact, as a nation, our sense of humor is partly credited for our political stability. However, more recently, we are using this same sense of humor to attack and inflict pain on each other. We deepen traumas for people who are already humiliated, deeply disappointed or have had an unsettling public or private experience. We are more and more becoming deliberately cruel. As a society, we have successfully disrupted our sense of safety, even for children. Private conversations are freely shared and ridiculed. Private failures are publicly displayed and made fun of.  We are drunk with power to make others laugh and no one is safe. The ongoing laughter over serious issues creates a sense of fear and helplessness that seeps into all areas of our lives, setting the stage for further trauma. We need to be mindful of what we joke about, what we share, whom we harm at the expense of being the funny person. Our sick jokes are making us sick. There is a great difference between allowing our sense of humor to help ease tensions and just being cruel to each other. Social media users are real people with real feelings. We need to unlearn the harmful ways in which we utilize laughter and know when it’s okay to make light of a situation.  Here is a very short list of instances not to laugh/joke about:

  • Abuse of any kind 
  • Corruption 
  • Invading someone’s privacy
  • A child in any kind of danger
  • Not having the sense to protect the next person 
  • Infidelity (It doesn’t matter how many times we’ve tried to normalize this with jokes, still not funny)

Charley, take a chill-pill!

I agree, we shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously over everything. I like jokes and I like to joke. But what I am asking is this, that we do not suppress our own traumas with laughter. That we do not weaponize our sense of humor, using it to inflict pain on those we may or may not know, like or even agree with. Laughter is one of the greatest gifts God gave us. But if laughter is truly medicinal, then we must be measured in how we administer this medicine to people, especially those who are in pain. We’ve developed this culture that is blinded to emotional trauma. If you are bleeding internally, we will laugh you to death. If you are lucky enough to have a cut on the skin, then we might give you a plaster and pray for you. The archetypical Ghanaian response to socio-economic or political crises is frightening. Emotional wounds are easily created and the hardest to heal.  We’ve been emotionally careless for far too long and we need to start doing better. We are creating laughing monsters— numb, disconnected people who are unable to empathize or trust others. We owe it to each other to be more responsible than this. I read somewhere that rats will avoid actions that can cause pain to their fellow beings. Certainly, this harm aversion trait in rats is not beyond Ghanaians.  It’s time to repair the Ghanaian sense of humor with common sense. 




Monday, August 8, 2016

What the KasapaFMOnline Apology to Kaya Adwoa Forson should have read


On the morning of Monday August 8, 2016, we published a story on Ghanaian Swimmer Kaya Adwoa Forson.
On the morning of Monday August 8, 2016, we IRRESPONSIBLY and APPALLINGLY published a story that referred to the TALENTED 14 YEAR OLD Ghanaian Swimmer Kaya Adwoa Forson, as SEXY.
The headline referred to her person as ‘Sexy’. We have since corrected the error.
Our UNFORTUNATE HEADLINE indeed reflects how low we have sunk in performing our duties as journalists. If sexiness could win Olympic medals perhaps we could have an excuse for being the PERVERTS you have rightly pointed us out to be.
Kasapafmonline.com wishes to apologize to Adwoa Forson and all who were hurt by how the headline was captioned. The story was in no way seeking to objectify her person.

KASAPAFMONLINE.COM REALLY HAS NO EXCUSE.  This is just PLAIN STUPIDITY and an ABSOLUTE DISREGARD for OUR RESPONSIBILITY TOWARDS CHILDREN.  We did not only objectify Adwoa Forson, we also effectively condoned inappropriate sexual behaviour towards Junior High School PUPILS.
We wish Adwoa Forson well at the Olympics. As started this morning, we are celebrating all members of Team Ghana at the ongoing Games.
ADWOA FORSON is only 14 years old but she is already making Ghana PROUD. We as fully grown adults have failed at our jobs and fucked up Ghana even further.

Thank you

Atwommɔ Editor

You make God so real Adoley




You loved it when I said hell is only a place
Out of your two million shoes
you picked up a pair
dusted it and walked out of hell

You are flying across oceans
wearing high heels meant for your feet
my love, my friend, my little sister
you make God so real

Do you remember when we cried
when we were so afraid that maybe
tomorrow will swallow us up
and spit us out
at a place that will kill our dreams?

Do you remember
how we sat on the floor
in that single room apartment and ate
Plantains, Kontomire and Kobi?

Did you know that today
when I think about you
amen
amen
amen
is what chokes me
till my eyes collect tears
like rain on the eight day of August
when you, this fantastic creature
was born with that terrible morning breath of yours
and a heart that finds its way to laughter 


Happy Birthday precious love 

Pillow fight




My pillow ate half of my neck last night and left pain
sticking out like a fish bone on an emptied plate
One, don’t take work to your bedroom
Two, sit upright and smile at nothing
Three, get up and stretch like a baby’s yawn
Four, drink more water like the Harmattan
Five, eat something more than mangoes and coffee
Six, lift your head up from the screen and call your mother
Seven, masturbate and hug your pillow
This is the only way to stop your pillow from eating
any part of your body on a Sunday night

Thursday, December 24, 2015

And then I knew…

You don’t find love
You create it
within yourself
till it overflows
and falls around you
pushing everything
to pick it up
and give it back
like you create it
so tenderly 
so knowingly

incessantly

Thursday, October 1, 2015

There are stories

My stomach walls
are flooded with tears

I am full
starved of love, laughter and sex
There is nothing to be said after
Story story story

Sorry

I mean it
For my stories
It was all true, you know?
The way it happened
The way I said it happened

But it hurts you,
My stories hurt you
because you 
want to be
my story

You, saviour
You, all
Me, nothing
without you
Me, yours

Was it the way I told it,  
that I told you,
or that it happened
with me
at the center of it all
being the villain,
cutting myself and losing pieces of me
stinging others and becoming them
trying to sew it back on
the pieces I lost
like a hero
flesh to flesh
blood dripping
scars forming
memories jammed
as I call your name
asking you to stay
when you had already left
not giving a fuck about my story
the way it happened
the way I said it happened





Thursday, May 28, 2015

Screen


I thought maybe
I should tell you that
these days
nothing is okay
unless

DELETE

I wanted to tell you
that you have become

DELETE

Hello

DELETE

Hey, I

DELETE

it’s been a while
just checking in
I miss you
Is everything okay?

DELETE

I saw your picture on Instagram today
You look good, happy
Take care

SENT

Hey sup
I was thinking about you the other time
Yeah, took that photo at Winneba, thanks
Will be going back there next week
you good?

DELETE

Yeah, thanks

SENT

I thought maybe
I should tell you that
these days
nothing is okay
unless

DELETE