Omekongo wa Dibinga
United States
Omekongo wa Dibinga Congolese-American youth activist, performance poet and indie-publisher "O" gives a passionate wake-up call to self-determination and pride in ancestry.
BIOGRAPHY
Omekongo wa Dibinga was born to Congolese parents in Cambridge Massachusetts. His first CD, A Young... More >
Everywhere & Nowhere
Congo in our PlaystationCongo in our cell phonesCongo in our air planesCongo in our space shuttlesCongo in our computersCongo in our furnacesCongo- everywhere and nowhere at the same timeBecause Congo is not in our mind
Pulse of the MotherlandThey say you can’t judge a book by its cover But it has become appallingly clear That you can judge an entire continent By its media coverage You can color a whole continent dark With the paint of poorly placed perception When you rely on the media To teach you your Africa lessons Because I come from a continent, That the world thinks is a country And to put it bluntly,We’re all HIV positive Until proven negative In the eyes of the mediaIt’s like Africa is either one big safariOr Kalahari with seethin’ heathens With no sense of religion And home to animals and animism Because TV renditions of African afflictions Have created a depiction Of a land of savagesWhere the world’s most dreadful diseases Exceed the law of averages And since American TV Only shows the ravages of a select few nationsMost Americans juxtapose the mother of civilization With phrases like “damnation” and “starvation”So if we don’t control our own images, We can’t expect to see A true representation of our beauty Most non-Africans believe that the most Africa has given to the world Are phrases like “Hakuna mtata” And “Asante sana squash banana” Along with exotic vacations in remote locations‘Cause I’ve never heard an American TV news station Even say we’re made up of 54 nationsIn the eyes of the media, We’re just underdeveloped wannabe Caucasians Still searching for civilizationIf you buy the media’s interpretation Of who we are But am I taking this too far? Because to me, The real problem be the WB, ABC, & NBCWhich are the real WMD:Weapons of Mind Destruction Because too many peopleIncluding many Africans See what they see Through the smart bombs they call TV And it’s not just the newscasts,It starts at age 3 Because I grew up Watching images of Bugs Bunny Dressed in grass skirts and black face Speaking in “African dialects” And every 10 years,There’s a new version of Tarzan on the TV set And I don’t know about y’all,But I recall seeing gorillas pass for Africans In those “Tin-Tin” cartoons And if you remove Marvin Martians’ helmet from Looney TunesHe’s probably an African illegal alienOr a fallen, faithless, famine-stricken African child With his stomach protruded And it’s these convoluted characterizations That have helped in creating grown-up policy makersWho partially base their opinions of our homeland From films such as “Congo”, “Gorillas in the Midst” and “The Air up There” And we can’t forget “Tears of the Sun”Which left too many tears on the sons and daughters of Africa, Searching for a beautiful representation Of our native land But that won’t happen until we Africans Take responsibility for our portrayal Because the betrayal of our friends From FOX, CBS, and CNN Means we will never see-an-end To caricatures of the continent of human creation Which has been made to look Like she’s on her deathbed And ready for cremation But we will show the world That our Mother Africa is strong, vibrant and defiant Because the pulse of nearly a billion people can never die When WE control what the world sees, So we must never comply To pictures painted by pessimists on TV of our homelandFor we are the pulse of Africa And we will now show the world How proudly we will stand!
