by Marie-Therese Belisle Nweke

Wednesday, May 8, 2024

There is this maxim which states: “If you’re not a liberal when you’re young, you have no heart—and if you’re not a conservative when you’re old, you have no brain.”

Well, when I was young, my conscience was stirred and I supported Black Power. I supported its Belizean manifestation, which was UBAD, under its youthful leader, Evan X Hyde, an American Ivy League college graduate. I suppose, because that represented one of the greatest threats to the structurally unequal and racist order worldwide, that made me a liberal and a person with a heart.

Now that I am old, and Black people everywhere, from Continental Africans to Diaspora Africans, are still being ripped off by the system, and further add to their woes by ripping off each other, I still support Black Power.

Indeed, Black Power must become a reality, bestowing true freedom and equity to Black people everywhere, plus the wisdom to unite and help each other in order to withstand their enemies.

My still unswerving support for Black Power means that I am still a liberal and a person with a heart—meaning humane. Would that mean my brain has atrophied, even as my larger humanity is a constant? (Thérèse)