Again this morning, my neighbour is seated on her veranda applying cream to her face. She is becoming lighter and lighter by the day - from chocolate brown (call it black) to some sort of yellowish brown. Once again, the question occurs to me: Where does this dissatisfaction with our identity come from? Hating our colour, our hair, our cultural names, our languages, traditional wisdom, and so on!
It is partly a colonial and neo-colonial construct! For our colonial masters (missionaries too!) demonised everything about the African, and this was socialised into the conscience of the subjects so deeply that many had to hate themselves. We thus crafted an education system that produced and reproduced self-hate, self-devaluation, and a passion for migration to Bulaaya (overseas) - where civilisation and humanisation come from.
In early school we sung about London Bridge, even those of us that had neither seen nor found a bridge of relevance to our realities! We sang about men who went to America. We sang about missionaries who found us in darkness and saved us. But we never sang in appreciation of who we are and the wealth of our country and continent!
In the end, a people was produced who desired to run away from their country at any opportunity. A people with an urge to become whiter than the whites. A people that will wear full suit and necktie and fan themselves in the heat of the tropical sun - in the name of looking official. A people that will migrate with all their education to clean toilets in the West. A people that will look at anyone coming from the West as a god of sorts. A breed of shameless beggers. A people that will laugh at any of their own speaking broken English or broken French but not at those who speak broken mother tongue! Yes, this is the system that has produced my neighbour who has just finished scrubbing her face now.
Goodmorning my neighbour... I hope you don't hear what I think about you.
Ssentongo Jimmy Spire
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