"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."

Ugh, it happened again! I got the vision to start this blog - I kept fighting the urge but here I am finally, I really couldn’t resist it anymore. The thing is, I have a lot ideas, thoughts and knowledge that I would like to impart and share with you, my readers - trust me when I tell you that it has been an interesting journey, you’ll see. In conceptualizing the blog and scouting for possible content, I dug deep into my past experiences to share with you, not to mention the amazing new things I discovered along the way and the things I learnt about myself.

With that being said, welcome to the launch of the new L’Homme Noir website and my first official blog post! I am so excited to share with you what L’Homme Noir has to offer! There are a lot of ideas, how-to’s, what-to-have’s and inspiration whirling around in my head is ready to jump out. I wanted to start by telling you why I created this blog and what you can look forward to seeing in my posts.

1. Why did I start this blog?

One of my faves, W.E.B. Du Bois’ questioned “How does it feel to be a problem?” through a treatise entitled “The Souls of Black Folk” and this was in relation to how we as a people were treated and are still treated today. Du Bois was pointing to not just having problems, but being a problem. Like when you look at yourself how does it really feel to be a problem?

I love being black. I love my skin... the colour of it... the texture. I love how there is not one crayon that matches its brown pigment exactly. I love the various shades we as black people cover. I love that our hair, a lot like our history, will not simply lay down... it rises... defying gravity... bucking against the weight of it all, and creates a rich proud culture.

But then we are the problem? I feel like one of the ways of combating negative energy is always trying to find ways to improve one’s self (in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t eradicate unfairness which is an argument for a whole other day) but improving one’s self does not mean bowing down to societal norms, it doesn’t mean always agreeing to what is “acceptable”. Sometimes it means just making yourself happy and better than you were yesterday and that’s how the idea of this blog came about.

What makes the black man powerful is the richness of his history, the power of his ancestors and the possibility of black love.

2. What will you be seeing in my posts?

I love that there’s not just one way to be a black man and you will see a lot of that being displayed in the posts. The blog will dive into a lot of self-improvement in terms of general lifestyle, health, education, finance, mental health, leisure and travel as well as love speaking directly to a coming from the perspective of men of colour.