The 'Hackdongā' Ethic/Ethos/Terms Of Reference/Mission Statement

I was inspired to write one of these after visiting the Afroklectic blog (Check it out- http://afroklectic.blogspot.com/ ) My new friend Gilean Opuku has described what her Afroklectic movement is all about and encouraged me to do the same. Forgive the uncertainty in this particular blog's title. When I figure which of the terms above best fits the words below I’ll delete the others. So the first time instead of breaking it down (Hack don Gā)and telling you what makes up the word let me BREAK IT DOWN and say what the word means. If Hackdongā made limited edition trainers these would be the words on the important looking marketing material that convince you that that you've just bought more than 2 pieces of China sewn leather with fancy paint on it:

Africans and people of African descent have invented a bunch of things. This is normal. There is no need to celebrate the phenomenon as something AMAZING and only only at particular times of the year. Black people were the first people on the planet. That means –the wheel, fire, sex, –we did it first. Hackdongā recognises our legacy of great achievements in HISTORY every day and looks to make even more creations of our own for the FUTURE. A sense of African pride should be a permanent institution inside us. It shouldn’t ebb and swell during Black history months or that good documentary on TV.

I got the idea of the ‘Welcome To the African Quarter’ motif because I like that any given city’s foreign quarter has always been identified with being different from the rest in new and different ways. The French quarter in New Orleans and the Latin Quarter in Bacardi adverts are synonymous with culture and fun. The foreign quarter in old spy books all carry a vague danger to strangers and enemies. I like that too. This reminds me of the position of the African diaspora all across the west Europe, America...Australia. (Even in some areas of Mother Africa itself e.g. North and South Africa and Botswana and until recently Zimbabwe the indigenous Black African is the second class citizen). We might account for a quarter of the population if that, or there’s more of us but we have a quarter of your money –that’s OK, our continent will be back and we STILL look good!