Legacy of 400 years!

A few weeks ago, a friend asked to talk about something — race. Justified by her encounter with racism, and feelings of uneasiness, she wanted to free her mind from an early meeting. She’s European and had met an African. As strangers express compliments and gesture of mutual respect while meeting for the first time — she’d met Koffi from Ghana. In their conversation, he proclaims she’s smart because she’s white, unlike the black folks. While she tried to resist his comments, he gave her no chance to express her dissent. She was angry that a black person feels that way and in our conversation, I expressed that it’s a process, not an event to erase a history of 400 years just within fifty years of independence. I talked to her about the colonial education system and gave a specific reference to the Algerian situation. I referenced Nkrumah’s Consciencism and Du Bois’ double consciousness and the social legacy of colonialism that reduced Africans to nothing and a narrative they were forced to believe about themselves. Koffi is part of a generation of Africans who in spite of economic deprivation, were given an education that makes them feel psychologically subservient. They are a legacy of 400 years of miseducation with a tragic impact on the African personality.