MANDEM (eBook)

Mandem United

Iggy London

THIS BOOK IS NOT JUST FOR THE WOKE. THIS BOOK IS NOT just for the politically correct inner-city creatives living in Shoreditch’s trendiest apartments. This book is not just for the people who listen to podcasts and are well-versed on speaking about the effects of gentrification and the cost of living crisis. Your chakras do not need to be aligned for you to understand this book. You don’t need to have a PhD in Social Theory to relate to this book. This is because this book is not just for those who identify as intellectuals. It is not just for the young men and women of the snowflake generation who know what ‘hyper-masculinity’ is. This book is not just for Black men who feel comfortable wearing fuchsia or pink or velvet—I know there are many of us. Shout out to my fellow brethren. This book is not just for my mother who probably found it easier to shut this book than to open it. Although she probably would never say it out loud. Shout out to you too. This book is not just about masculinity. It is not strictly about class, race or religion. This book is not just for the mandem.

This book is and will forever be a book for the people. The book that seeks to challenge what society views as what is an important story to tell and what isn’t. This book is personal. For those who read this, you should all know that this book is about lived experiences, ones that will remove the tight ring that holds a lot of men (and women) to believe in the stereotypes referenced herein. And Lord knows I have had to learn this the hard way. Cue story time.

1993. Cold as fuck. Victor and Esogie, both Nigerian nationals, migrated to England with hopes for prosperity and peace. The pair passed across thousands of miles to finally call western civilisation their home. With history so densely packed in their suitcases, they sat on their long haul flight, anxious as to what could possibly await them when they landed. Although happiness coated their memories, so did disaster and frankly London was a way out of war into peace—into certainty.

My mother, Esogie, an owner of a small clothing store in Edo state, and my father, Victor, a tailor, each had big ideas of what this new world would provide for them. Eventually the pair would settle for the second floor of a council estate building in East London instead. Too frightened to integrate, they built their own fortress of Africa in the heart of their home. Maggi cubes, scotch bonnets and an assortment of spices would flood the nostrils of visitors walking through our corridors. Windows firmly closed for fear of letting out the smell of difference.

I was born on 15 May 1994. Enveloped by the Little Nigeria my parents created in the comfort of our council flat, this would define what I understood to be home. As a child agility was my best friend as I studied each vital step to the stove, removing the steaming hot lid and picking up the leftovers of my mother’s newest delicacy. Barely brave enough to hold it in my hand for two seconds, I would eat at the bottom of the stairs, being careful not to scorch myself.

The youngest of five girls, my mother would pay close attention to the way she looked. After she finished cooking, I would sit on her bed and watch her bring down her suitcase from the top of her faux marble wardrobe—the finest furniture from Upton Park market. I’d stare as she rummaged through a plethora of African cloth. Finally satisfied with a modest number that covered everything but her ankles, she’d wrap her waist with the remnants of her last remaining connection to the motherland.

With a stern glance at me, I would quickly put on the shirt my mother prepared for me, fit for the lie we were about to present. The bell sounded and the show began. I leapt down the stairs, peeking through the holes in the bannister to see which family we were performing for today. A feeling of indignance remained from the last family we entertained. My father sat in the living room as my mother would greet people, who looked like senators and noblewomen.

They would exchange words and phrases: ‘Welcome’, ‘God bless you’, ‘We thank God’ and ‘God bless you’, as if they were playing a game of who could be the most holy. At such a young age I realised how important the facade was for my parents. They needed to build this everlasting idea of what Nigeria looked like to them in case they ever forgot.

Like many others growing up in Newham, there had been no formal invitation to the other quadrants of the city and so for most of my adolescence ‘the ends’ was the only place that mattered. Pre-2012 Olympics, the inner-city borough was predominantly a working-class area with a large Black and Asian community.

There were only two buses that took me and my brothers right opposite the school gates. Over here, we always sat at the back. Music always blasted from brick phones sat perfectly on window ledges to address their audience. The ‘olders’ never spoke, they just did. In Newham, MCs were respected over singers. Kickers over Wallabees. Ski masks were worn even though no one had been to the Alps.

I don’t know when I realised that men like me were not afforded the luxury of emotion. I don’t remember when I first realised that men like me had a certain role to play. I arrived at this misnomer not by any miraculous vision or intellectual enlightenment. No, I learnt this from Newham. Looking back on my experiences, growing up in Newham as a young kid was an incredibly awkward time for me.

Newham was a place where most boys thought they had to be strong men before they were fully-fledged adults and, admittedly, I was one of them. Newham was a place where we appeared ordinary but inside there was a reluctance to share ourselves completely with the outside world. I began to realise that humanity did not take into consideration the Black male state. We were not included in the big worlds of feelings, love, loss, pain, or joy in any meaningful way. More often we were completely excluded.

So I, like many of my peers, adopted the standard archetype of the ‘no-emotion-big-man’. It was this framework that boys who looked like me had to live by if they were ever going to be praised as men. And if we didn’t obey these Draconian rules that were imposed on us from our inception, we were instantly labelled as an ‘other’. It is sad to say but for the longest time, I believed this dogma and acted accordingly.

By the age of 16, my pubescent self was more confused than ever. It was safe to say that hypermasculinisation continued to be imposed on me. Cue flashback:

It is a non-uniform day and the product design students are working on their coursework. Product design is a class I thoroughly enjoy but pay no attention to because staring at the laser cutter is far more engaging than knowing what polymethyl-methacrylate is used for. I pre-planned my outfit perfectly; a white Primark t-shirt, a Topman slim-fit flowery shirt and black skinny jeans topped off with some tanned boat shoes—harmless I thought.

I quickly found out that this outfit wasn’t part of the ‘hood man starter pack’. The olders came for me first. The gay jokes started from the playground and slowly worked their way through to first and second period. The questions came after.

‘Fam, what the fuck are you wearing?’

‘Why the hell are your jeans so tight? Are you a girl?’

It took me a while to realise that my own authenticity couldn’t exist in this Grand Theft Auto world that I was being told to live in. But I couldn’t just drive off a bridge in San Andreas and respawn into a wiser, stronger version of myself. Instead, I just rolled with the punches. Life taught me that the person I aspired to be wasn’t the type of man the boys at my school wanted to be. I chose to subvert the ‘norm’ and to construct my own identity.

Fast forward to present day and it appears that for many of us, masculinity does not live in such archaic confinements anymore. You’ve got men dancing on TikTok and eating kale and taking pictures on Instagram stories using puppy dog filters. Masculinity is not as fragile as it once was—I think.

Fortunately, there is no one way to define masculinity or manhood. Why? Because there is no one way to be a man in this new modern landscape. I mean, what would be the benefit in having another framework to call ‘normal’? Think about it. The same historical frameworks that were created for men to uphold were given as goals to achieve and aspire to—a masculine measuring stick if you will. Not only are these definitions tiresome to the modern-day man, but some men might feel they do not fit into these narrow categories. We have evolved further than these labels. If I had to describe what a man is to an unclassified foreign life-form from Mars, I would say simply, speaking coherently in its cool alien language:

I strongly feel that with the obvious struggle to achieve gender equality and since investing in discussions on feminism that are further advancing our understanding of the sexes, there has been more of an open conversation about what masculinity means and whether the rigid, stereotypical dimensions...