Dr Umar Johnson talks TV and the Black Community
Val Benjamin, Reaching the Least, the Last and the Lost Vol. 2 Issue 40, 4th – 10th June 2021
Chinelo
Kachi
Nwogu
Fashion Therapy Crafted with Love
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Chinelo Kachi
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By Beverley Cooper-Chambers My name is Chinelo, and it’s Nelo for short. I’m a public health scientist and a veterinary doctor. I studied veterinary medicine for my undergraduate, and then I went on to do a Masters in Epidemiology at Imperial College in 2008 - but my first love is fashion.
M
y grandmother was very fashionable. I think I got the whole fashion thing from my maternal side. My grandmother was an entrepreneur; she was very stylish, and then she gave birth to children who loved fashion. My mom, she’s very, very fashionable, and my aunties. My auntie used to have a fashion house in Lagos, Nigeria. When I was on holiday from university, I would always go down to her boutique and try different stuff. I used to model for her as well when I was younger. I’ve always loved clothes, playing with clothes, being in front of the camera, even though I can be shy, but people don’t believe I am shy, because they feel like you wear all these bright colours and claim that you are shy. My love for fashion has started long ago. When I was in veterinary school, which is quite conservative, they didn’t quite understand me because I was the one student
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who always got in trouble because of the colour of my clothes, which is weird. I did veterinary medicine in Nigeria, so it’s different; there is a different educational system. So, they didn’t quite understand how someone would come to school wearing pink or gold colours when you’re meant to wear demure clothes. They attributed demure fashion to intelligence. So, they thought that if you spent your time on fashion, then you’re not spending time reading what you’re supposed to be reading. Once I moved back to the UK, London allowed me really to be able to express myself. But I came into London, I’m like, “Oh my God, look at everyone is free, and people can wear whatever they like, and they can be whoever they want to be.” So, that’s been my journey.
BM: Right, so did you ever go into the area of working with animals?
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BM: You were born in Nigeria?
CKN: No, I was born in the UK. My parents migrated here to go to school. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, when Africans used to come to the UK to school, they had their family, and they end up taking their kids back to Africa. I spent most of my childhood and early adulthood in Nigeria.
BM: How did you make the adjustment going back to Nigeria?
CKN: I left at age four, but I remember having these dreams of chocolate Easter eggs and did not know what they were until I relocated to the UK, and I saw Easter eggs in the store that found out they did exist. Okay. So, when you came back, you were an established veterinarian?
CKN: No. Once I came here, I decided to do the Public Health. I enjoy studying diseases and the determinants of diseases. It’s my passion as well. I guess fashion is something that just makes me happy. For me, fashion is therapy because getting dressed up and feeling girly or feeling beautiful in a dress is quite therapeutic, especially during this pandemic.
BM: How did you get into the business?
CKN: I think I struggled when I started the business because I think I just started it as just the love for it, and I didn’t know about it. I didn’t have any strategy and no business knowledge. I just want people to have a feel and experience African print. I just want to own a business - Cumo London. I want people who wear Cumo London to feel happy, to be vibrant, to be able to express themselves, to feel the vibrancy. And also, be unapologetic. I think that’s very important for me, that you’re able to be who you are, who you want to be in your skin, and not feel like you need to explain yourself to anyone. That’s what I want people who wear my brand, that’s how I feel, and that’s how I want the women who wear my product also to feel.
BM: How do you turn out these beautiful outfits?
CKN: I understand the economic power of women in Nigeria. Most African women struggle to be financially independent and empowered. They live underneath the wealth of their men or their partners, or people around them. My vision is for the brand to provide jobs that enable them to support their families. We use local Get artisans based in Lagos and Eastern lar Items u g e R ff Nigeria. O ou Quote
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BM: Who is the designer?
CKN: I design my clothes here. The material is opensourced from Ghana and Togo. I use women fabric buyers; a chain of women coordinated by my personal assistant oversees the tailors, fabric suppliers, courier service, and delivery service from Lagos to the UK. We don’t employ them. They are business owners. Hopefully, by the time the brand grows, the dream will be to have our own factory and warehouse where we employ the people.
BM: What are the challenges that that presents?
CKN: I think the biggest challenge would be logistics for sure. There are different parts of the chain that you don’t have any control over, like the economy and currency exchange. Production costs will fluctuate, although the agreed retail price remains stagnant. So that’s been a challenge. Then government regulations would prefer money is not spent outside the UK, but production costs here would inflate the price of each item. Customs tax increases the more items you import, and the costs bring risks with a knock-on effect if a shipment is held at customs; we have lost time on photo shoots, releasing the latest collection as an example.
BM: You cater for plus sizes?
CKN: Yes, To be honest, I think it was part of the thing I learned in the business as well that we did have a lot of plus sizes; it’s about representation. You see people that you feel
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like everyone is slim and wear size zero and stuff, and you’re not being authentic. Well, I do many plus sizes now, and it’s one of my most famous lines. I allow women of all sizes to be able to feel my brand as well. I don’t want to feel like my brand is not open to any particular size. I let them then decide if they’re going to buy into the brand or not.
BM: Where do you find your models?
CKN: We source the models online. They are professional models. Another thing again I learned early is, I try not to associate family with my business. I didn’t want any pressure on my family in terms of being productive or efficient. Efficiency is a big thing for me. If I wish to efficient, then I have to pay for it. But when you want friends and family to do something for you, you have to go by their schedule. So again, that could derail my vision. If I want this to work, then I have to pay for it to work.
BM: How long does it take for an order to arrive?
CKN: Ideally, it should take a week for a UK order to be fulfilled. Three to five working days, ideally. But we have struggled in the pandemic. Our international customer, anywhere in the world, should have it in 10 to 14 working days, depending on the mode of delivery.
BM: What would your advice be to someone who wants to get into the fashion industry?
CKN: I think that’s one thing for any aspiring businessperson: do something you’re passionate about. And that if something happens while you’re doing it, you’ll always say, “If I had a second chance, I’d still do it again.” Because you love it, I think that’s the thing. It is very tough. Would I do it again? Definitely, 100%. I’m going by what my customers ask or want. I make sure those things are stable products and are always available to buy anytime on the website. My focus is to provide ready to wear clothes in your size.
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BM: What would be your final word to the readers?
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CKN: My final word. I want my customers to feel loved each time they purchase from me. To provide good customer service, high-quality product, and all the women my product comes in touch with will feel each product is made with love.
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Dr Umar Johnson talks TV and the Black Community Dr Umar Johnson explains the Reason Why “Empire” is problematic to the Black Community Credit: The Breakfast Club
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The Lost Pirate Kingdom Credit: Netflix
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Pirates Code: Real Pirates Credit: National Geographic
The Whydah Gally Brief History of a Cape Cod Pirate Ship Credit: newengland.com
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Dark Matter: A History of the AfroFuture The arc of black history shares an uncanny resemblance to the plot points of classic scifi including ‘alien’ abduction, enslavement and rebellion. It’s this unlikely relationship that provides the inspiration for Afrofuturism, the broad cultural trend that encompasses works by Jean-Michel Basquiat to Grace Jones, Solange Knowles and Sun Ra. In this film, we meet, see and hear from artists across three continents who each, in their own way, explore the Afrofuture to look at the horrors of the black past and imagine alternative futures. The mysterious yet influential Detroit techno duo, Drexciya, take the Atlantic Ocean, a site of death and destruction during the African slave trade and reclaim it as a place of creation and beauty. Through a series of releases from the late 1990s through the early 2000s, they envisage the unborn children of enslaved pregnant women, thrown overboard during the Middle Passage to the Americas, adapting to breathe under water and thrive in a Black Atlantis. The mythos is vividly brought to life by the Drexciyan collaborator and graphic artist Abdul Qadim Haqq as a thriving, technological undersea world. Visual artist Ellen Gallagher similarly transforms the violence of the ocean into rebirth and renewal. Her film Osedax, made with Edgar Cleijne, is an imaginative retelling of how the skeletal remains of
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dead whales sustain new life in the curious form of the bone-devouring worm of the title. Whereas for artist Hew Locke, as well as the ocean itself, it’s the Atlantic’s coastal fringes that inspire his world of bricolage phantoms, plucked from the ghost stories of a Guyanese childhood. The Afrofuture is perhaps most commonly imagined through the rubric of outer space, thanks in no small part to avant-garde jazz musician and poet Sun Ra. Born in the southern US in the early 20th century, Ra underwent an interplanetary conversion, claiming to have been teleported to Saturn. As with funk pioneer, George Clinton, who describes a similar close encounter with extraterrestrials, Ra’s identification with an alien presence can be read as more than simple escapism. It’s also a biting satire on the alienating experience of being black in America. For Ra, space is also an alternate destiny for black people, as the title of his 1973 Afrofuturist feature film Space is the Place insists. Reaching beyond these fictional ‘Afronauts’ is the conceptual artist Tavares Strachan. His performance piece, Star City, Training in Six Parts, sees Strachan visit the famous Russian space centre to undergo the same rigorous – and often tortuous – training of the Cosmonauts. Strachan likens one of the exercises, which measures our capacity to withstand disorientation and gravitational stress, to his impoverished upbringing in The Bahamas. The film concludes with an exploration of the idea of double consciousness. Coined in the early 20th century by WEB Du Bois, the influential African American sociologist, doubleconsciousness describes how black people in western societies see themselves twice over. Through their lived experience but also how they’re perceived within a dominant white culture. Curator and writer Ekow Eshun traces uses of the idea through Ralph Ellison’s lauded mid-20thcentury novel Invisible Man, and painter Kerry James Marshall’s image of the same title, right up to the Black Lives Matter movement. Predicated upon recordings of anti-black violence often captured through digital tech, Eshun argues these ‘expose’ a double consciousness at work, the world as experienced and seen through black eyes, laid bare for all to witness.
Jamaica Railway (Rail Transport in Jamaica) Credit:InJamaica
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Kids Black History Learn African languages Credit: KidsBlackHistory
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Viewer’s Choice
This week from Cherry L. Plymouth, UK
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Black British
Politics
Val
Benjamin Reaching the Least, the Last and the Lost
BM: Who is Val Benjamin.
VB: I’m an ordained minister of religion in the apostolic faith. I was born in Jamaica. However, I came to England at the age of 13. There were only two Black children, apart from myself, at the school. The amount of racism we faced from teachers and pupils is unexplainable. Regrettably, I left school with no qualifications, no confidence and low self-esteem.
BM: What did you encounter?
VB: At school, teachers hindered my progress by constantly saying, “you can’t do this or that.”. I left and got married. I have three children, three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, but after watching them face the same challenges as Black children in today’s world that holds you back, I decided to step into the gap left by society. My parent did not raise me, so there were challenges at home, and I suffered mental and physical abuse. For a long time, these were factors that held me back and prevented achieving my full potential.
BM: You are now an accomplished author of two books? .
VB: After my divorce and raising my children, I wrote Val Benjamin’s 10 Tips: For Getting the Most Out of Your Day. I also enrolled at Douglas College, where one of the teachers encouraged me to pursue a career in teaching. I joined the University of Central England and read my BEd. with teacher training, I was specialising in Humanities. I love people and justice.
BM: What led you to the We Matter Party?
VB: Divine intervention. I still lacked self-esteem until I achieved my Diploma in life coaching. I realised I am unique and fearfully and wonderfully made. I learned how special I am because of who created me. I just left the old me; the new me, prayed, and the Lord knew that I had a passion for justice. I started to work with young people to understand their challenges, empower them, and build
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By Beverley Cooper-Chambers the HEN organisation. H-E-N, Holistic Empowerment Network, partners with the We Matter Party and empowers young people to help with their studies, money management, and lifestyle needs. I found my place guiding them from where there are to where they wanted to be. I don’t believe in just talking the talk. I believe in walking the talk and living what you say you would do. Bishop asked me to do a speech at their prelaunch, and all that I wrote down to speak about I did not use. The Holy Spirit just took over and expressed all that was in my heart. And every passion that I had in my heart for change just came out on that day. And that is the beginning. The rest is history.
BM: What is your role?
VB: The Outreach Membership Director
BM: Why should we support or join, We Matter Party? It’s just another political party.
VB: Wow. That’s an excellent question. And I was hoping you would ask. The, We Matter Party, we are transparent, we walk the talk, we are people-centred. We don’t focus on one section of the community. Although we are a Black-led party, we do not isolate or exclude anyone. We’re there to meet the needs of the whole person. And not only that, we are a God-fearing set of people who love people because God loves them. Again, it’s all about inclusion for disenfranchised people. How the world views some people, especially the Black community, is covered by the three Ls: the least, the last and the lost. We Matter Party believe that none of us is lost, none of us is the least, and none of us is the last. It’s about equality and justice for all.
BM: Some people might say we need an exclusively Black party?
VB: Although we’re Black-led, it’s fundamentally about the three Ls and meeting our community’s needs and society.
Dear
BM: Are you a Christian party?
VB: I may be a Christian; that is my choice. We live in a diverse community, and therefore, again, I will emphasise the word equality and inclusion for all.
BM: How do people know about you?
VB: Word of mouth is effective, and the proof is in the taste of the pudding. The media, of course, is essential, but I believe that recommendation is powerful people talk about our transparency. I excel in building rapport and strong relationships as a mentor and trainer. Our Black community mistrust the police; therefore, we supported Bishop Desmond’s bid for election as the Police Crime Commissioner. He lives, works and communicates with local people. We have to get our hands dirty. We have to get to know the people and be a part of the people, not just a political party by ourselves; it includes listening and applying.
BM: How are you funded?
VB: Now, this is where I talk again about being authentic and transparent. Some people get significant funding and fail to deliver. We are self-funded. We put our money where our mouth is. We have over 200 members since March 2021, and it is growing. We can accomplish so much; therefore, can you imagine if we get the unity and the support then how we will carry out and be effective in the area we intend to impact. It cost £18.00 a year to join. I cannot stress enough the need to have the We Matter Party address our communities’ issues.
BM: How can people reach you?
VB: We are available at www. wematterparty.org, and you can get in touch through the website or email info@wematterparty.org.
I Think My Man is Using Me
Sharon
Dear Sharon, I have a boyfriend in Jamaica, we grew up together and we were actually best friends. I migrated and got married…my husband was a real jerk, but I got three great children out of the relationship. They are all grown now and living their lives. I took a trip to Jamaica and reconnected with my old friend and he wants to take the relationship to the next level. I have been officially dating him now, I take trips home, brings nice things for him but somehow although he sees me, we don’t share romantic times. He doesn’t kiss me, make me feel special and the only time he shows warmth is when I give him stuff or money. I am a citizen so if we get married, he can come to the States in nine months – he seems excited about that…but I am bothered by his behaviour now. Should I go forward? Confused — NH – New York Dear Confused, I think there are some questions that shouldn’t be asked … sorry for speaking this way. I am just so tired of women who see all the red flags and still allow themselves to be used. My mother always tells me that if you make yourself a door mat then there is nothing else to be done but to walk all over you. Your boyfriend is clearly using you as his meal ticket and what’s more, he doesn’t need to be romantic to you because he clearly has someone who is benefitting in that department. Don’t be surprised if you marry him and file for him if within three months he has left you and getting ready to file for his real love. Cut the ties now and save yourself some dignity. Sharon
Struggling to Shake Old Habits Dear Sharon, I recently gave my heart to the Lord and I am wondering if I am really saved as the Bible verse says once we get saved, old things are passed away and all things are become new. I want to give up certain bad habits such as drinking and smoking but I it is a struggle. I still have desire for them and I feel so guilty. I am afraid tell my pastor and I pray none of my church brethren find out as I don’t want them to think I am playing church. I genuinely want to stop…please I need your advise. JW — Toronto Dear JW, Welcome to the long line of imperfect people. Your story is not unique. Don’t ever question your salvation, just because you are struggling with your old habits doesn’t mean God hasn’t embraced you into His family. Paul who wrote most of the New Testament had the same struggles. Read Romans 7 – 23 – 25 and see how he struggled to do the right thing but ended up doing what is wrong … forcing him to exclaim “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of death?” The answer he gave is your lifeline to help you overcome, ‘I thank my God through Jesus Christ our Lord, so then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.” Try to win the battle one day at a time, ask the Lord to give you strength and never even be ashamed seek a support group if you must…but continue to read the Bible and allow God’s strength to help you overcome. Sharon Transform your viewing...
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