On The Salvation of Self-Love: The Affectation - Overcomimg Shame and Removing The Mask by Chuma

Review by ALICIA BANKS

In blessed moments, one reads a book that is far more than a mere literary work. It is a spiritual experience of powerful prose. It is a musical journey within a word song. I have just been blessed to read such a magical book entitled: "The Affectation: Overcoming Shame and Removing The Mask."

Chuma Whahid Rasul (née Christopher Hicks) has penned a literary masterpiece that features an artistic gumbo of poems, prose, screenplays, and memoirs which breathe the passions and pains of his life as a homosexual. Typically, gay bashing churches and their demonic religions taught Chuma to hate himself. Admirably, Chuma taught himself to defy that holy ignorance with self love.

There is no greater salvation than the love of oneself. God is love. God lives within us all. Finding that inner God is the ultimate redemption and salvation for all rebel souls.

Chuma has the unique ability to take us inside his pain. This book is intense and inspirational. His life story is hypnotic and haunting. As he poetically spins his tale, we all reel with the familiar vertigos of condemnations, rejections, confusions, heartaches, rapes, degradations, soul murders, fears, and dejections, that every gay person knows as intimately as we know the warmth of our very own breaths.

Chuma’s life is filled with joy and pain, defeat and triumph, pride and shame, and rapture and resilience. His searing prose is amazing. And, he makes us feel the fire of every emotion that his torch songs evoke.

When Chuma writes about his loves, we are also intoxicated. When he documents rabid religious hatred, we all shout his pain. When he laments sorrow, we all share his tears. When he describes his loneliness, we all experience the void. When he celebrates his triumphant survival and defiant self-love, we rejoice in his salvation.

I revere consummate writers. They use truths as time machines. They evoke movies in our minds. This book reads like a timeless screenplay. Chuma’s life has been a vivid and divine journey that he has creatively tailored to spark our imaginations and touch our hearts.

I adore this book. Anyone who has a heart will love it too. Read this book today. See it at: www.ChumaSpirit.com

Alicia Banks is a Scholar, Educator, Public Intellectual, Radio Producer, Talk Show Host, DJ, Columnist, Singer. You can read her blog here.