Scorned

I grew up in Lagos, Nigeria. My neighbours were black, my teachers were black, my friends were black, the President was black, everyone was black. I am black. And yet of significance is the fact that because everyone was black, no one was black. Having dark skin was synonymous with having two eyes, or a nose, or a liver or a lung. It was one of several, several characteristics of being human. It didn't matter. It was inconsequential. I grew up believing this.

Fast forward to 2009, and I was a 17 year old girl entering the United States for the first time. There were several things I was naive about; race was one of them. I was quickly buffeted with information and opinions and a whole history that I had been previously mostly unaware of. Films and books and television had talked about racism, but it had always remained a distant, far-removed concept, one as foreign to me as -3 degrees weather and nasal accents I had difficulty understanding. But it was important that I understand, and that I inform myself quickly about the history of the United States. Because I now live in America, along with all the brilliant things about being in this country, the realization that I am black is of consequence. It means that, for some illogical reason, I am different, something more, or less, than was meant when I was home. It is a realization that shocked me then, and that I continue to grapple with always.

Since 2009, I've had several conversations about race. I've taken classes and read journals, I've written responses and listened to lectures; I've worked hard to educate myself. Yet I do not think that I've fully understood what racism is, what it feels like, until today. I have never felt as personally attacked or aggrieved, as entirely victimized and hurt as I do today. An individual, or group of individuals, has targeted another group of individuals over something they have not done, that they have no control over, that should not matter, something that has been entirely constructed over and over again by people who were ignorant or prejudiced or hateful. This is a reality that we must live with. It is infuriating, it is terrifying and it is hurtful. It makes me wonder about the country I now reside in.

More importantly, however, this incidence makes me realize that educating oneself on issues of race is not enough. I have spent the last three years at Oberlin silently paying attention to occurrences on campus, but never getting involved. I have sat idly by. I have listened. Listening is not enough. Action and solidarity are important. We must speak out against all hate, we must revolt against those who try to fragment our community, we must work hard for our happiness. I stand in solidarity with all who feel victimized by the occurrences on campus. I stand against all individuals who target me and people like me because we are a minority. I stand with the rest of Oberlin as we defend the principles this college represents.

Enough is enough.
Written by: Olive Nwosu

On the Loss of Innocence and Being-too-Young

I remember how there was a time when I could never fathom the following:
How Black Americans in the time when racial aggression was at its worst could live in a neighborhood where daily their friends and family got beaten, shot, or lynched.
How people in Afghanistan could go on living in an area where each moment laid imminent death by the Taliban.
How could they carry out any semblance of normal living at such times, and in such areas?
Why wouldn't they just leave?

Now, when I read about how a girl was returning from the market on her way to dinner,  when suddenly a soldier raid rampages her neighbor hood, or how a man was driving home from work and was suddenly shot by a member of the KKK, my senses are not completely shocked at the complete contrast of the two happenings.
I understand perfectly how my country can be deemed a terrorist nation, facing internal war from a religious sect, and I can still go on living there with my family, and living a relatively normal life too- watching movies, going to Church, having parties.

I read daily that another Church had been bombed, another raid unleashed- and with the full knowledge that it could have just as easily been me, I wake up and do the same tomorrow.

Why it is this way- I do not really know.
But sometimes leaving just isn't an option- and not even in the physical sense you may think I mean.

Maybe it's because leaving just isn't the answer- but that's probably not really why.

But it doesn't just stop there- I myself have been a subject of a dreaded news take on a crises. It was horrible, I was shaken- but I'm still there and I still live.

What I have learnt is this: We can never just stop, we have to keep moving-to carry on.
And sometimes these things that happen really are greater than us, and all we can do is be moved, swept by the tide.

Harsh fact for someone whose barely lived.

I really am too young, to be feeling this old.

-Cathy

A Rant?

'Germans are stupid'

Ok, so I have this little stereotype stuck in my head. I know it's obviously wrong, and that it only holds true based on ad hominum logical fallacy. But I honestly don't care- at least, not now.

A lot of times you go on hearing that we've come along way, and that Racism is a thing of the past- a non-subject really.But I am sadly certain that it's a thing that may never go away. And not because it can't, but because it's continually propagated- by both sides. And not in the tangible way it was before- that was the easy part. Now its subliminal it's in ideas, in comments, in charity- in matters you just can't pin point.

But that's not what I'm about to focus on- no lofty ideas for now.

I just have a case in point, is all.

As an African studying abroad, after previously not doing so: I came smack faced with it on a daily basis. But sometimes it becomes so open and obvious- but still in that way that remains so elusive.

1)A German boy  having watched me run a race( the only black person running) went up to another African girl and told her 'Congratulations on running':
a) This boy has been in my class the entire year
b) this boy is friends with the girl he mistook me for
c) There are only 4 black girls in our year(myself included)- and neither of us look alike
d) To further this- I am tall, thin, with a short curly hair style. The girl is Short, plump, with huge long braids

And I am just like:

2) We were at a UKCAT(Medicine test)  test preparation session when a black friend of mine came out on top in the decision analysis section. This section deals with encoding cryptic messages based on numbers representing disjointed groups of words.  A Girl( another German) made the following comment:
'It(her success) must be because that's how they talk where she comes from'

Once again:

Now I know this is ignorance.
And society today will tell me to 'chill out-obviously they don't mean it or can't you take a harmless joke?'

But you know what, society? No I *OBSCENITY* can't, because it doesn't matter whether they say this with the hatred of the KKK, or the stupidity of ...Bozo the clown! I don't care.
This, my friends, is the exact reason why racism will never end.
And until we learn to stop letting it go as a joke- this intangible elusive subliminal *Obscenity* we call racism like an annoying itch- will never leave.

And here is  the reasoning behind my claim, in the words of Aibileen Clark from The Help:

''- stop that moment from coming – and it come in every child's life – when they start to think that colored folks ain't as good as whites" 

-Cathy

On the Universality of Faith and Religion

Dear Friends,

I believe that life can put us in the strangest situations, and that some of these little things that happen at the most unexpected of moments, can touch our lives forever.

I am riding on a train at the beginning of Winter, heading my own way. The sky and clouds- the view- is picturesque so calm and still, and icy blue as the evening turns to night. The silence of outside refelects the silence within the train, and no one speaks because of its beauty. But if you listened well, you would hear muffled discussion and hushed tones like the whispers of love.

And I in silence, gaze out the window in amazement of the beauty of creation. And I can’t help notice the boy, quiet, sitting across from me. I don’t know what it is...that is, his face that caught me. And somehow I know he’s different, in that way one’s soul- the inner-most sacred being within- jumps for joy inexplicably. Immediately, I know I like him. So we talk and talk, at first uncertain and polite. But somehow time passes from minutes to hours, and the two strangers on the train so quiet; their voices breaking the cool silence of the train.

The Muslim boy from Palestine.

The Christian girl from Nigeria.

And though they are worlds apart, there has been no one closer. Kindred spirits in a foreign country with no faith. And after months of not hearing about religion,and feeling isolated in faith, he says to her:

‘ I don’t understand it. I never have. How people can go on day by day, believing in nothing”

Her eyes soften and she replies:

‘I know right? I mean, hypothetically speaking even if there were no God, what harm does it to believe ?’

‘...to have someone to come too in trust and love unconditional’

‘But as for me, I know He lives’, each said .

And before I knew it, the train ride was over- a train ride before that seemed time endless. And we were off on our own paths, our different worlds. And though, he may one day forget this, I remember it always. For at that point, he was my soul mate, and the spirit of God was there in that train...

I was just fortunate to be aware of it.

What I am trying to say is this:

People of faith, all faith- be it Christianity, Islam, Hindu, Judaism, or Sikh – we are all connected in that we believe. It is one GOD we serve, we are all His children.

Then why, dear friends, do we continue to emphasize the little things that make us different?

Some call him God, some call him Allah- but a different name doesn’t have to mean a different being. And what is human language when concerned with the affairs of the spirit?

Therefore, friends, we must learn to cease all forms of inter-religious persecution and segregation, and instead unite in a spirit of love and understanding. We are all brothers and sisters in this family of faith with God as our our head. Respect the little differences that do exist, and accept that no two children in a family are the same. Continue to show love to everyone- even those who do not believe. In fact, more so for a brother who has lost his way- bring him back to the family fold. Do this not by force or threat, but through prayer and love, as our God has taught us.

I end this letter, with the reassurance that God who is the source of all being, and who has given us the freedom to choose what we believe and follow, knows that one day all will be brought back to Him- one body, one faith. Until then, dear friends remember:

‘I believe in the fundamental Truth of all great religions of the world. I believe they are all God given and I believe they were necessary for the people to whom these religions were revealed. And I believe that if only we could all of us read the scriptures of the different faiths from the standpoint of the followers of these faiths, we should find that they were at the bottom all one and were all helpful to one another’ - M K Gandhi

-Cathy