I’ve had a lot of thoughts scour through my head over the past few weeks and I just haven’t been able to perfectly articulate them, particularly the ones surrounding all that’s happening in the world right now. From Covid-19 as a backdrop, to the uncanny death of George Floyd and the death of Tina who was raped and beaten in Benin, Nigeria, I have not been able to find words appropriate enough to sum up my emotions.
LIVE
AND
LEARN
INTRO TO BEING BLACK IN AMERICA
Looking back on my experience, my first racial encounter happened when I first moved to America. I attended Limestone Walters Middle School, where I was the only black kid in the entire school. I remember the first time I was called a ‘n-gger’ and having no clue I was being insulted at the time. The kids on the playground held their breath to see if I would beat Sam up, but Sam was three times my size... and a white male at that. If I retaliated, I would have been labeled as the monkey on the playground. In another racially-charged incident, although I was smarter than most of my classmates (due to the rigorous curriculum we had in secondary school in Nigeria), I was demoted from 8th grade to 7th grade halfway through the semester because I was ‘too hyperactive’.
Looking into my adulthood experiences, I’ve had to show up to campaigns with white colleagues to validate my existence. There’s a stark disparity in pay between my white counterparts and myself, and I’ve even been dropped out of campaigns for demanding equality in treatment and pay.
It took quite some time, as a Nigerian-American, for me to understand the systematic dismantlement that has plagued the black communities over the years. It has taken me asking the very ignorant questions to attain a deeper understanding of what it means to be black in America. Many thanks to documentaries like ‘13th’ ‘I’m not your Negro’ ‘When They See Us’ for shedding light on the decimation of blacks in this country. Not only are we being killed, but our sense of hope and purpose is being swiftly taken away from us. For example, we live in a society in which, oftentimes, the offense we commit is not commensurate with the retribution given, because we are black. America - particularly White America - has to learn how to value the lives of black people in the same way they value black culture and black dollars.
Over the years, the nation has done a phenomenal job at equivocating the issue at hand which is the value of black lives. Racism is an unacceptable power structure and it cannot be dismantled by simply deciding not to call blacks niggers. We have to work diligently at putting an end to the dehumanization of blacks in this country. To my fellow Nigerian-Americans; though our sense of purpose lies in the land of our forefathers, what must be indelible in our hearts and minds is that once we step on the American soil, we adopt the struggles of what it means to be black in America. As Africans in the diaspora we are not immune to racism, and we have to fight with our black brothers and sisters to ensure that their voices are heard.
These past few weeks, months... 2020 in general... have been mentally challenging, to say the least. I advise anyone who may be finding themselves struggling with it all to step away from the socials and truly prioritize their well-being. There’s so much information floating around, but it’s important to understand that being enlightened is a long, long journey that can only be obtained offline.
