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Topic starter
12/02/2019 9:37 pm
Where I'm from, we were always taught to look at the roots before blaming the trees for being crooked. This is one of the story I hoped would remain untold, but being so down that you have to look up to see your house's foundation, you can't but begin to dig up those lines that remained in the abyss.
In my early years of learning about racism, I didn't really apply it to discmination against human. Rather I applied it to the supremacy of white rice over every other coloured rice. I wasn't dumb as a kid, but that was the closest thing to me. What else would you expect from a child who loves food? Not that I preached against the equality of all colours of rice, I loathed 'coloured' rice for being less superior. So I felt.
Later in life. Not too far from my 7th birthday, I began to notice the unfairness I metted towards the albino. I saw him as a peeled bean. "Oyinbo pepper, shuku shuku pepper" raced out of my mouth faster than the speed of light everytime I saw an albino.
I thought being racist was something peculiar to me, but I soon found out it was a thing that ran in the family like genetic qualities. Father scolded us when we played with our Hausa neighbours. In his unfair thoughts, we shouldn't be found rubbing elbows with such crude and backward people. Mother was always ranting of how black lives matter. In her hypocrisy, she crucified black people with tribal marks for looking like cats.
I'm not supposed to tell you much about my family, but you wouldn't have understood why my parents stood against my relationship with our neighbours daughter.
I was careful to uphold my parent's instructions, but just a soothing wind of love blew me into a short nap and my parent's instructions slipped from my hands. Not that I forgot the whole instructions of my parents, I just held on to the one that says "love your neighbour as yourself." Our Neighbours Daughter became my heart beat and everything I couldn't do without. And that was how my problems began.
Since I meant to tell you this story in a flash, it's useless taking you through the turmoil I faced with my parents for being 'deviant'. I just want you to know love is the reason why I was disowned and labelled a 'black sheep' out of the 'snow-white-lambs' I had as siblings. As if preaching harmony and being racist against someone of different tribe wasn't hypocritical enough, racism tore my family apart.
—Shomade Abdulazeez.