Playing his clarinet inside one of London’s most exclusive members’ clubs reminded him of the privilege the elites can enjoy, but also the illusive duality of his identity, as the echo of his clanging Ashanti beads around his wrist, the scent of shea butter and sandalwood oil immersed upon his mahogany brown skin, reminded him of his true African identity.
Jesse Yaw takes us through his journey as a young black man, exploring the racial constructs of relationships and modern society. With its destructive perceptions of class, race, truth, and equality, coloured by the trajectory of historical discrimination, and prejudiced western norms that have been embraced by the global community, Jesse seeks to explore the psychological impact that assimilation to westernised ideologies of beauty, governance, education, economy, law, class, and politics has on humanity. And what that consequently means for his self-determination.
He acknowledges that, for too long, negative perceptions have cast a dark shadow upon black lives and subdued black potential. For these destructive perceptions to be removed from the eyes, lips, minds, and hearts of the global village, the re-education of the human mind is central. Jesse deconstructs the subconscious voice of the human mind, and establishes the unaltered truth of who we really are.
Jesse is a Ghanaian conscientious writer, poet, political theorist and activist, who is an advocate for racial equality and global justice. He was born in the United Kingdom, his heritage sewn into the fabric of the royal Ashanti tribe of the Akan people. He regularly travels back to his motherland, Ghana. Having worked in the corporate finance world for many years and being educated in the United Kingdom, he has had first-hand experience of the perils of racism, assimilation and its adverse effects on black people; and more importantly its crippling impact on black potential. He seeks to unravel the psychology behind racism and to explore the power of manipulation upon the human mind, and hence its conditioning. He explores contemporary, as well as historical, political, psychological issues, particularly in relation to identity and stereotypes, in hopes of exposing false ideas that have been embraced globally about black people. Jesse, acknowledges that the re-education of the mind is central to the true emancipation of African descendants.