Tag Archive for: culture

The Killing of Iryna Zarutska

Killing of Iryna Zarutska: violence, racism, and the silence around Us

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A death that should haunt us all

I’ve seen too much online to think that a single video could still shake me. But the footage of Iryna Zarutska’s final moments did. She was just minding her business on a train, when her life was suddenly stolen. The way she looked up at her attacker in shock and fear, the way she clutched herself and cried into her hands while people sat around in silence. The scene broke something in me.

She didn’t die instantly. She bled, terrified, as if waiting for someone, anyone, to acknowledge her humanity. But no one did. Men and women sat feet away, eyes glued to their phones, unwilling to lift a finger. Some even stood up and walked past her without so much as a glance. That image of indifference in the face of dying haunts me as much as the attack itself.

And what makes it unbearable is knowing she had fled a war in her homeland, only to be killed in a place where she thought she might find safety. The cruelty of that irony is almost too much to bear.

The tired excuse of “mental illness”

We’ve all heard it before: the attacker was “mentally ill.” I reject that explanation outright. Evil is not a medical condition. When someone has been arrested fourteen times for violent behavior and is still walking the streets, that’s not about health. It’s about a broken justice system.

North Carolina had the chance to keep this man contained, but instead, he was free to take a life. And he’s not the only one. Just months ago, another repeat offender killed three people in New York without provocation. How many times must we read the same headline before we admit that this pattern of leniency is a policy failure? A society that values excuses over accountability is a society that chooses predators over victims.

When racism finds its opportunity

As if her death wasn’t painful enough, the aftermath was poisoned further by the reaction online. Scroll through the comments under censored versions of the video and you’ll find an avalanche of racism:

  • “Survived war but not black America.”

  • “They should introduce white and black sections on public transport again.”

  • “These people were the worst purchase in American history.”

There are hundreds like these. One man commits a crime, and suddenly an entire race is on trial. Racists wait for these moments, lurking in the shadows, ready to seize on tragedy as their green light to spew hatred. They don’t care about Iryna, they don’t care about justice. They wait for moments like this, tragedies that should unite people in grief and outrage, and instead they twist them into weapons to validate their hate, to stigmatize, and feed their ideology.

As a Black woman, I cannot describe the exhaustion of watching this cycle. Racists grab onto the worst behavior of a single Black man and inflate it into a narrative about all Black people.We are not a monolith. We are not represented by the worst among us. And yet, the moment one of “ours” commits a horrific act, it’s suddenly open season. The hate pours out eager to say “See, we told you so.”

Our own responsibility

Still, the death of Iryna Zarutska forces hard questions within the Black community, too.We can’t keep pretending that violent criminals don’t come from our own community, or that every act of brutality can be explained away by “systemic racism.” That excuse is tired, and it hasn’t saved us.

The reality is that too many Black neighborhoods are ruled by fear. People are scared of their own neighbors, the very people we love to excuse. Why do the most successful Black families do is leave the hood? They don’t want to raise their kids around gangs, dysfunction, and violence. And let’s be honest: the danger is real, and denying it only makes it worse.

If we want progress, we’ve got to break the cycle ourselves. Stop glorifying thugs. Stop raising kids where crime is the soundtrack of daily life. Stop living off government scraps and calling it survival. That’s not “cheating the system.” That’s doing exactly what the system designed you to do: stay stuck, stay dependent, stay powerless.

We can’t rewrite slavery, but we sure as hell don’t need to keep reenacting its consequences. At some point, we have to choose a different path. One where our children inherit discipline, opportunity, and pride instead of excuses, poverty, and fear.

Amzy ouvre sa tournée américaine avec un concert mémorable à Manhattan

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Ce samedi 30 août au Centennial Memorial Temple de Manhattan, le public burkinabè et les amoureux de musique africaine ont assisté à un moment historique : le tout premier concert d’Amzy aux États-Unis. Cet événement, qui marquait l’ouverture officielle de sa tournée américaine, a tenu toutes ses promesses. Plus qu’un simple concert, il a pris les allures d’une consécration.

Une salle comble et une communion patriotique

Dès les premières heures, le ton était donné : salle pleine à craquer, ferveur palpable. Le public, composé de fans venus de plusieurs États, attendait déjà l’artiste avec une impatience fiévreuse. La soirée s’est ouverte par des prestations d’invités qui ont préparé le terrain, avant que l’hymne national du Burkina Faso ne soit entonné par toute la salle. Un moment solennel, chargé d’émotion, ponctué d’une pensée collective pour la mère patrie, confrontée à de lourds défis sécuritaires

Avant même que ne retentissent les premières notes de musique, les musiciens d’Amzy de talentueux Burkinabè établis aux États-Unis se sont installés sur scène. Puis, une surprise a cueilli le public : une vidéo projetée en ouverture, où la voix grave et vibrante d’Amzy revenait sur la mémoire douloureuse des peuples noirs. Les images, crues et sans fard, retraçaient l’esclavage, la colonisation et l’exploitation, appelant à la dignité et à la résistance. Cette séquence a donné au concert une dimension mémorielle et militante, rappelant que l’art peut être un vecteur de conscience autant que de divertissement.

L’entrée du Gandaogo National

Et puis vint le moment tant attendu. Quand enfin retentit l’annonce d’Amzy, le public explose. Le Gandaogo national fit son entrée, porté par l’ovation d’une salle en ébullition. En guise d’ouverture, Amzy choisit M’ma guess fo biiga (“Maman, regarde ton fils”). Rien de plus symbolique pour ce moment unique : À New York la ville qui incarne le rêve américain, ce titre résonnait comme une consécration : un fils du Faso hissé sur l’une des plus grandes scènes du monde.

 

Un voyage musical riche en émotions

Le concert fut un véritable voyage, alternant entre mélancolie, énergie et fierté. Amzy a enchaîné plusieurs morceaux, chacun apportant une couleur et une émotion particulière. Il a su toucher les cœurs avec des titres intimistes comme Salop en version acoustique, faire monter l’adrénaline avec la puissance électrisante de Bolba, réveiller la nostalgie avec Na Gadamin, et enflammer la salle entière avec ses classiques incontournables tels que Wa Locké et Bienvenue à Ouaga, repris en chœur par un public en transe. Mais bien au-delà de ces morceaux phares, chaque chanson du répertoire proposé ce soir-là témoignait d’une richesse musicale et d’une authenticité qui ne laissent aucun doute : Amzy est un artiste qui refuse de se laisser enfermer dans un seul registre, et qui fait de la scène un espace de vérité et de communion.

Une fin qui annonce de grandes choses

À 23 heures, le rideau tomba. Le public, encore debout, en redemandait, mais comblé d’avoir assisté à un spectacle intense, généreux et historique. Pour un premier pas aux États-Unis, Amzy a fait bien plus que chanter : il a incarné une victoire, celle d’un artiste qui a réussi à transformer son parcours semé d’embûches en un cri de liberté universel.

La tournée américaine ne fait que commencer. Prochain rendez-vous : Cincinnati, Ohio, le 6 septembre 2025, où ses fans attendent déjà de communier avec lui.

Hier soir, à Manhattan, Amzy n’a pas seulement donné un concert. Il a écrit une page d’histoire pour lui-même, pour le Burkina, et pour toute une génération.

When a man cheats, he’s a Villain. When a woman cheats, she vanishes.

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There’s something almost cinematic about it: a CEO and a CPO caught on Kiss cam at a Coldplay concert. The crowd cheers. The camera lingers. And just like that, what looked like a rom-com scene explodes into a corporate scandal.

But let’s be honest: this story isn’t just about two high-level executives breaking their company’s code of conduct. It’s about how we, as a culture, decide who gets held accountable and who gets quietly edited out of the frame.

The names we remember. And the ones we erase.

The CEO of Astronomer, Andy Byron, has become internet cannon fodder. Think pieces, tweets, memes. His name is everywhere, cast as the powerful married man and father who crossed a line. And yes, that’s true. But what about Kristin Cabot, the Chief People Officer caught being cozy with him? Where is her headline?

Early reports carefully mentioned omitted her name. Even more telling: few acknowledged that she, too, is married to Andrew Cabot, CEO of Privateer Rum and has children as well. That fact only surfaced through secondary reporting and was quickly brushed aside. Many days after the scandal broke, even as both executives were placed on leave and Byron ultimately resigned, major outlets still tread carefully around Cabot. One the latest NBC article  stated they had not confirmed her identity — while the public had already flooded her LinkedIn profile days earlier.

The feminist loophole: accountability-free womanhood

We’re constantly told that feminism is about equality. Equal pay. Equal power. Equal opportunity. Great. But what about equal accountability?

Kristin Cabot isn’t a junior employee. She’s the head of people, the executive who literally oversees workplace ethics, behavior, and internal policy. She is, in many ways, the moral gatekeeper of the company. And yet, when she breaks those same standards, the media treats her like a side character in her own scandal.

It’s a dynamic I’ve seen too many times  in politics, in media, in our everyday social discourse: when a man messes up, we drag him. When a woman does, we explain her, protect her, or we forget her entirely.

This is why people are losing faith in the equality conversation

We cannot keep pretending this doesn’t have consequences.

There is a growing number of men, especially young men  who feel alienated by what they perceive as a one-sided moral code. And while I don’t subscribe to the rage of Red Pill culture, I understand its fuel: they’re watching how public narratives are shaped, and they’re not wrong to notice the double standards.

If a man cheats, he’s a monster. If a woman cheats, we’re told it’s complicated.

If a man in power violates ethics, it’s a headline.

If a woman in power does the same, it’s a PR footnote.

That’s not empowerment. That’s inconsistency.

If we want integrity, we need symmetry.

This isn’t about punishing women to make things “fair.” It’s about telling the truth with balance. If we’re serious about building an ethical workplace culture or a culture of trust at all, then women must be as answerable as men. Especially when they hold power.

Kristin Cabot doesn’t need to be destroyed.

She doesn’t need to be vilified.

She just needs to be acknowledged.

Because erasing her role in this scandal isn’t feminist: it’s dishonest. And that dishonesty? It’s why people tune out when we talk about equality. It’s why some are starting to believe it was never about equality in the first place.

If you’re going to hold the CEO accountable,you hold the CPO accountable too. Not because she’s a woman. But because she’s responsible.