Opinion
By Teddy Fikre

The next revolution was sang by Teddy Afro and directed by Tamirat Mekonen; this weekend, 65 of our people wrote a revolution on the back of Busboys and Poet napkins.

Black. It is a color often disabused. It is a hue seldom given credit. For too long, black has been seen as a curse. Even by her own people, black has been a color of death and a the perfection of misery. Black has been given a bad rap, instead of being treated as royalty, black has been abused as the color of disease. This pernicious disease of the mind; we live in a world where black is prostituted as the essence of debauchery while other colors are praised as the hue of God’s perfection. But black is the mother of all colors and the children of all hues, without black there can be no white, black is what you get when you fuse the colors of the rainbow. Black is perfect. Black is me.

It is for this reason that I am in awe of Teddy Afro’s “Tikur Sew” music video. Most don’t understand it yet, but what Teddy Afro is singing about is not merely a retelling of Adwa, Teddy Afro is chanting the melody of a black revolution. Never in my lifetime did I think I would witness a sea of Ethiopians in a soccer stadium—30,000 strong—singing “Tikur Sew” and being proud to say “I am black”. Yet, one song by Teddy Afro and a corresponding video by Tamirat Mekonen has revolutionized black and now we stand in awe and love our blackness. This is the happiest moment of my life because black has been raised from poverty to prosperity. Teddy Afro repainted the canvass of the world with tikur and managed to burn into the psyche of Ethiopians and black people as a whole the true beauty of black.

Nearly 60 years ago, Thurgood Marshall changed the glide path of humanity when he had the audacity to challenge the mendacity of “Seperate but Equal”. The most powerful means he turned to when he challenged this pernicious law was a study his team conducted of the evils of racism. They turned to black children less than 10 years old and gave them two dolls. One doll was white and the other was black; all the black children immediately gravitated to the white dolls while they abused the black dolls. The depravity of bigotry was engrained in the minds of these black children that the color black represented all the ills of the world while white was the personification of good. The irony of all ironies was that these children were fed into their spirits the negative light of black by their very own parents. When I say that racism only exists because it is espoused and propagated by black folk I don’t say it out of hyperbole—the biggest obstacles in the way of black folk are black folk themselves. The Klu Klux Klan has nothing on rappers like Soulja Boy and gangster rappers when it comes to destroying black hope.

Now you know why Teddy Afro’s Tikur Sew is all powerful. Teddy Afro has become our Thurgood Marshall, he is dispelling the idea that black is evil from the mind of our children. I hope in due time we will stop wearing black to funerals and only wear black to our celebrations. In due time, we will stop referring to dark skinned Ethiopians as “koolies” and accept them as the closest thing to the color of God. In due time, we will not be repulsed as a people when the winner of Miss Ethiopia is from Gambella and accept her as the truest sense of Ethiopianism. This is a revolution my friends, one fired without a single bullet and started with eskista instead of dead bodies piling up in Bole and beyond.

It was for this reason that I organized “I am Tikur” event at Busboys and Poets this weekend. I had a vision of retelling Tikur and showing to the world that black is beautiful and that we should be proud to say we are black. Even though I got endless emails and text messages saying “I am not black, we are special”, for the most part the vast majority of the responses I received were positive. My people, children of Ethiopia old and young alike, started to change their Facebook status updates with “I am Tikur” and made the “I am Tikur” poster their profile pictures. Endless tweets were sent with #IamTikur and by the time the event at Busboys and Poets launched, a sea of our people and others who love our mother Ethiopia came out to celebrate our blackness and oneness with the African Diaspora and African-Americans.

Read more at browncondor.com.
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Related:
Teddy Afro’s Tikur Sew Music Video Launched (Ezega)
Tamirat Mekonen: The Person Behind Teddy Afro’s Music Video ‘Tikur Sew’ (TADIAS)