When Yesterday Barks at Today: Simi, Wizkid and Critical Digital Literacy - Final

In that voice I wish I could hear again, my late mother would say, “Omolara, oku te sin, ese re ti yo sita." The closest interpretation to this is James Baldwin's, "All your buried corpses now begin to speak." Mum would say this when there was a resurrection of the evidence of a hidden sin, which was sneaking biscuits or snacks into the bedroom so that it could match my favorite pastime, which was and is still reading. When I had done this and thought I had been successful, the crumbs from snacks would attract ants and their cousins, and this is when Mum would say the lines above.

Yesterday barks at today when the present wrestles with the past. When your present can't hold up to the scrutiny of your past. Wizkid came under attack when his old tweets resurfaced. Before that, Naira Marley tweeted he wanted to sleep with both a mother and her daughter. Has Simi said other things that may bark at her someday? Yes and no. Yes, I saw a video of her nearly a decade ago that I thought was homophobic, but many Nigerians are that way. No. Maybe her view of sexual minorities will remain the same.

Some of you are saying homophobic things today that may bark at you tomorrow. A queer person was allegedly thrown down from a story building, and the perpetrators were allegedly in a video of celebration that circulated online after they “kpaid” him. If you participated in this lyching and your child is denied something tomorrow because of this incident, you would say "cancel culture" or “Christian persecution." As long as sexual minorities and other marginalized groups are not included in our current outrage over Simi's previous tweets, your outrage will remain "performative” to me.

Also, this Mirabel issue, which led to what appears to be the mudslinging of Simi, has many layers to it that time may reveal. I am unsettled about many things surrounding this case, but that would never stop me from believing another xrape victim until proven otherwise. The statistics of women who lied about rape are much lower than the popular narrative often touted.

That said, critical digital literacy is what we all need. I had proposed to teach a class on the technologies of self, à la Foucault. Foucault's "technologies of the self" has layered meaning and understanding, but some scholars extend this concept to social media to index the processes, tools, and methods through which subjectivization binds individuals' identities and consciousness to certain tools and, at the same time, to an external power. We all want to use social media as a liberatory tool, but we are also bound to the agreements through which we submit our rights and privileges to tech giants. These inventions were aimed at invading our mental privacy, as the traditional method of confession at a priest's booth was becoming obsolete. So, when you log in and it says, "What is on your mind?" you start your confession. I am not for self-censoring, nor am I against spontaneity, but I think we need to continually inform ourselves. Ignorance is not always excused, and "sorry" is not always a good eraser.

Also, this “male victimhood” would only make me and many others see you like people who say, "They were made to apologize for their identity." There may be few depraved women out there, but not as many as we know of men. Saying men are suffering sounds as illogical as saying I feel more victimized as a ciswoman than as a queer woman. I still have some “privilege” that queer women can’t easily claim. The issue is not about a hierarchy of pain but intersectionality. The same woman who walked away from a "careersexploitation" with Brymo is the one you want us to believe children are “unsafe” with?

Abeg let me go and double my hustle