With this in mind, it should have come as no surprise to me the reactions when the news of Amy Winehouse’s death filtered through. But given what has taken place and still is going in the world right now, I kind of thought the worlds celebrity obsession would have taken a back seat, just this once.

At a time when 80 + young people were shot by person filled with unbridled hate, hate that our best selling newspapers consistently want to exacerbate. A time where millions of people starve in East Africa even though the western world throws out enough food to feed all of these people. I just thought that some type of compassion for human beings that aren’t famous would eclipse that given to a single person.

Yet on Friday night when news of the Norway shootings was breaking out, hardly anyone was talking about it, and hardly anyone talked about the famine in East Africa, there was very little sympathy on my twitter feed and there was much less on my facebook. As soon as a celebrity died however, there was condolences and expressions of sadness coming from all angles.

And I just thought to myself what a strange world we live in. I guess it must be the case that ‘a celebrities death is a tragedy and anyone else’s death is merely a statistic’.

The biggest point from all three of these tragedies is that they should all give vital lessons.

Amy Winehouse’s death should serve as a reminder of the way we treat drug addicts, that governments over the world are failing to combat the problem of drugs in the most effective way.

The terrorist attack in Norway should serve as a warning that we cannot continue to fill our world with hate.

And the famine in East Africa is another reminder that our world is hugely unbalanced, greed is rife and more needs to be done to make things better.

R.I.P to all of those who lost their lives over the weekend.

I thought I was going to have a meeting with the most holy today, but I woke up only to find it had been cancelled. Slightly disappointed, I won’t lie. I really have a lot to ask him, even if most of the questions won’t be answered it would have been cool to actually meet the big man.

Perhaps he would have deemed my inquisitive nature as petulance and disrespectful, he may have sent me to visit his other son lucifer for this, but I would politely have told him that he made me (paternity test pending), so he should take some responsibility for some of my actions, you know like any good parent would.

It’s always nice meeting someone you’ve heard so much about, good and bad. It would have been a chance to put some of the myths to rest, you know the ones about him enjoying seeing children starve and mothers raped. I would have tested that flimsy defense that so many of his followers so often use, (some who have Johnny cochran skills others are more Lionel klutz when it comes to defending the ways of the world.)

But unfortunately it’s been cancelled, maybe I’m not one of his chosen few. Which is funny, because giving some of the things I heared about his loving nature, I thought he would have had an open door policy.

Do you have an instant image of the way a black person should talk? The music a white person should listen to? Or what an Asian person should be good at? Does it then slightly throw you off and make you question whether or not that person is acting like another race because they listen to a specific type of music or speak in a certain way?

Because I am confused, since when, or should I say why is it okay for someone else to define another’s “whiteness, blackness, Asianess”? If you’re wondering what I am getting at, I am referring to the statements, insults that people will throw around when they feel someone doesn’t quite meet up to their standards of how a person of a certain race should act. If you are unaware of the words that I speak of, I mean words such as bounty, wigger, coconut and oreo, all words that are intended to be slurs upon someone, no matter which way you try and phrase them.

You will get the “bounty” taunt thrown at a black person who doesn’t quite speak how someone expects them to. If they speak with a little too much Prince William in their voice, then they aren’t black, because apparently to some (black and white), black people only speak slang and are incapable of speaking in a well spoken manner (or as they see it, in a white manner). Is there a black dictionary that I am yet to acquire, or is peoples pig ignorance something that should just be accepted?

The reason I get annoyed with the use of words like bounty/coconut/oreo, is because quite often this label is only given to those who do nothing wrong apart from stray away from the stereotypical caricatures of African-Americans and Black British people, you know someone who might prefer classical over hip-hop, might happen to pick a white girl on a dating show over the sole black girl on it. Rarely, if it all, is the label applied to people who offer a negative portrait of black society, never will you hear the “road guy” being deemed as acting white no, such labels are reserved for those who simply don’t match up to how people normally expect someone to act.

I was unaware that there were specific traits that you had to have to officially make you a black person (if someone has this list, please email I will be interested to have a read, thanks.), and today I often cringe at myself and others when things like “Black Peoples Time” and other stereotypes are thrown about casually, whether meant half-heartedly or not, it is weird that people will so willingly put themselves in boxes and apply labels to themselves, yet will perhaps scream racism if say a white person said it. Of course I am not naive enough to dismiss the differences that exist in cultures, Africans are different to Europeans in the way that they go about every day events and such, but Nigerians are different to Kenyans, and the French and Estonians are also different. These differences have less to do with race (however, perhaps someone who is more knowledgeable in sociology etc could tell me different), then people tend to make out. Would our relatives that live in the motherland look down on us because they would deem us not black enough, I mean surely if anyone has a right to define blackness it is those that live in Africa or the Caribbean, no?

To some, a person’s colour is just that, nothing more than the colour of their skin. Others feel that it defines you, which is fine, but that doesn’t mean you have the right to assert someone else may not be black enough for you because they don’t quite talk how you think they should, and neither does it make someone less white because they listen to slightly more Jay-Z and Lil Wayne then you do.

Most importantly, when people throw around such insults, I think it is important to remember that race is nothing more than a man-made concept that was, and still appears to be used to divide.

I often find myself thinking that I have yet to achieve anything or at least not enough; at 23 years old, I feel I should have done a lot more. This might be unnecessary pressure or quite simply just the truth, I don’t expect unrealistic things from myself, others might. In my head, life feels like it is running away from me, and with every moment a let slip by, I become increasingly hard on myself.

It’s feels like being a teenager again, but slightly worse. Merely because it was all expected at that age. And whilst there are some things to enjoy about this period, the uncertainty, frustration and nostalgia tend to creep their ugly heads more often than I would like.

But if all the studies are right and it is taking a longer amount of time for this new stage of transition, is this necessarily a bad thing? Is my frustration warranted or am I behaving like my sister and wanting to grow up before its needed?

“Lost in the world”

The phrase, “Kids grow up too fast these days”, must be one of the most overused phrases in history, I’m sure every generation utters it and bemoans the way that younger people are in such a rush to run away from their age. But as of late, my 12 year old sister has forced me into repeating this same phrase on a number of occasions, not only is she making me feel that I am 40 rather than 23, but she has also made me think (worry) about how I will manage to deal with the complexities of a young mind when (if at all) I have my own children.

From the age of about 10, becoming an adult was one of the only things on my mind, one of my favourite phrases was probably “I can’t wait until I’m older”. I was deluded, painfully unaware of the way important things were made to sit on the back-burner, whilst unimportant things fill your mind; your imagination is asked to be curbed and diluted by the negative factors of the world as you shift into the gears of reality. I failed to realise that down the line I would look back and wish that I could just be a care-free child again.

But whilst I feel I wanted to grow up fast, I also feel that I actually managed to have some semblance of an actual childhood, now I find it strange, worrying, sad that my 12 year old sister appears to want to be an adult before she has really been a child. In today’s age, this can be put down to a million and one things, children are influenced from 24/7 media just as much as adults are (many would argue this is partly to do with issues of bad parent management of internet/tv time, I tend to agree. Growing up too fast is multiplied by 100 for children of today’s society, mobile phones, laptops, Facebook, lack of “real children’s television”, bad television and in many cases lack of real parenting, play too much of a role in bringing up kids. Technology has become the babysitter of the 21st century, as parents are forced to work longer and harder than ever to make ends meet, and many of them are too worried about their surroundings to ever feel that is safe enough to let their children go and play in the nearby park.

One of the most ironic things is the belief by kids that when becoming an adult, you inherit more freedom, but I believe that whilst a child your freedom is perhaps at its peak. So you can’t drive a car and stay out until all hours, but you’re not pressurised by society to do things a certain way and conform or get a job, pay bills etc. Unfortunately like most things in life, they won’t see this until its too late.