America’s Reckoning Through The Lens of a Nigerian-American
2020 is the beginning of what will surely be a remarkable decade for many reasons that are apparent, as we very slowly refresh from the aftershock of a global pandemic.
We are immersed in the rally cry for vengeance against the systemic racism that murdered yet another Black life — George Floyd, who was killed by the deadliness of police brutality.
As a Nigerian-American who was born in the Bay Area and raised in Lagos, my perspective on what it means to adopt the balancing act of inhabiting two vastly different cultures has been constantly evolving.
What I can definitively declare about my current status is that my Americanness has absolutely eclipsed my Nigerianness, and that’s strictly based on the fact that I have spent most of my time in the States with limited trips to my homeland.
Growing up during the gangster era of the eighties, that permeated lawlessness from irreparable fractures of governmental dysfunction, and the never-ending military coups that violently toppled one dictator after another, ultimately shaped my childhood, and made me susceptible to fairy tales about my birth country.
Despite the harrowing encounters that my father weathered with the police when he was a young Black man, attending college in America, during the seventies, both my parents were temporarily brainwashed by the outright lies from white acquaintances, who cunningly boosted the appeal of African immigrants at the expense of their lazier and criminally-inclined Black American counterparts.
As a youngster, my desire to reclaim my birthright was the hovering fantasy that intensified with each passing year that potently demonstrated the horrifying residue of British colonialism, and how white invaders had willfully and permanently destabilized Nigeria’s capacity for greatness with the betrayal of embedded self-hate without a cure.
The dream came true after graduation from boarding school, and my joy knew no bounds as I contemplated the next phase of my life with great expectations, and the relief of departing a sinking territory, that gifts invaluable resources to westerners, while abused citizens contend with the lack of of basic amenities like electricity and running water.
