Why Ava DuVernay’s “When They See Us” Is The Torturous Masterclass In Systemic Assault
When they say boys they’re not talking about us. When did we get to be boys?
As the daughter of Nigerian parents who followed the mass exodus of the early seventies from a war-torn country, thanks to the failure of Biafra and the remnants of an uncertain future, my eventual conception and birth in the United States of America was considered the ultimate blessing.
The family of four that included the addition of a younger brother, departed the temperate Midwest for the systemized chaos of the unregulated wilderness of a former colonial territory, that was ablaze with the normalized disease of bribery and corruption, that filled the path to much-needed progression with potholes of nationalized dysfunction.
As civil servants, my parents had bought the falsehood of how returning to your homeland with foreign degrees would somehow make the trajectory of enjoying the fruits of your labor seamlessly attainable.
Unfortunately the only way to survive the gangster era of bloody military coups, scarcity of homegrown resources and accessibility to basic amenities, was to convert into a tribal hoodlum, with the motivation to do whatever it takes to sustain a functional household.
