The Black Cover Up

Has it ever occurred to you that whenever people don’t want others in their business the colour black is used as the discourager? In Africa most especially, black is a symbol of sorrow, defeat and probably bad luck. 

Could this be the reason why polythene bags were made in black? To drive away the curiosity of people as to the contents of the bag.

Wondering where this conversation sprung up from? Well I was rushing through a shower to work one Tuesday morning when I heard in the Twi dialect, ‘mirror, I have mirror, mirror’ from a very deep male throat. 

I burst into laughter because of how the chant suddenly sounded and disrupted the still atmosphere.

I then recalled my experience with a mirror seller some weeks back. He was selling the Ludo board in addition to the mirror, after much bargaining and paying for my board, he bade me farewell and left. 

As I continued on my way home I was thinking to myself why the mirror seller did not offer me a polybag to put my purchase into. 

Note here that polybag here meant the black one. I didn’t want all the people I met on the way home to know that I had bought a Ludo board.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with my purchase and so why was I trying to hide it from everyone? Apart from the prying eyes reason, it’s probably because of an earlier experience. Our ingrained thoughts and actions I hear are from our experiences either good or bad. 

So let’s say I bought a pair of shoes and my polybag got thorn so I had to carry it plainly for all to see home. The comments I heard or the facial expressions I saw will inform my decision to secure a blacker bag next time.

What’s with the polybag analogy? It’s pretty simple. Everyone is forced to make some aspect of their lives look dreary to ward of attention, which is mostly negative because let’s face it in our part of the world we rarely find people going out of their way to give positive compliments towards the others’ achievement. 

When you become rich it’s because you are either engaged in fraudulent activities, you used black magic or even a high class call girl. 

We do not see hard work during the foundational stages of success. But do we expect people to give us a play by play of their journey to success?

And yet we wonder about the huge waste issues the black polybag has brought. I dare to say the innovator of the black polybag drew his inspiration from these tendencies of ours to pull people down. 

Therefore, when you don’t see my success equals you don’t pull me down and that can be translated to when you don’t see my shoes you don’t know I’ve made a new purchase, you don’t know I’ve got some money to spare. 

And because we are wonderfully made in the image of God, there are so many wonderful things about us and if we want to cover all of them up, then I’m afraid the polybags are here to stay.

The black cover up prevents you from seeing my real worth and it prevents me from seeing and appreciating your real worth. The bible tells us to let our light shine before men. 

Now how can men, nations see our light under a black cover up? We all have the potential to be a black cover up when instead of rebuking with the word of God, we use our human standards of morality to belittle others. 

When instead of correcting a friend from repeating a mistake we broadcast to every listening ear how they have had that misfortune over and over again.

The negative comments we shower intentionally and unintentionally on others in a bid to either make ourselves feel more superior or to draw attention from our problems to their shortcomings contributes to the prevalence of the black cover up.

We are children of the most high and he is the embodiment of light. Bible says just as he is so are we in this world therefore in this New Year be a light shiner. 

Instead of a black cover up, be the white blinding light that shines on the goodness in all men.

May this New Year teach us all to be true salt and light of the world, a happy and light filled 2022 to us all.

 

Cheers 🥂

PS: this piece was originally written two years ago for a friend's blog. Just incase you've come across this in the past, please I've not plagiarised . I am the original writer. Thanks 😊