I sat in the PRINCE 2 Project Management class June of 2014, and I was the only black person in a class of about 50.
When I first visited the United Kingdom in 2004, I was naively unaware of the neatly camouflaged snippets of racism.
When I started living here, I saw it in the condescending comments and carefully laid out ‘banana peels’ a new immigrant like me fails to spot at the workplace. You were odd!
You couldn’t be told that in point blank stereotypical fashion as was in the heady days of racism when blacks couldn’t sit on the same bus as the white and had no sporting chance to pitch with the whites in any contest.
So here I was in a class of 49 whites, a spotless canvas to pick me out.
Iam not naturally a competitive person. I would rather you make me out, you find me doing my stuff naturally and you make your own judgements. I have always felt it was a ‘mechanical’ approach to self-expression by forcing others to see and endorse your worth.
Unnecessary hair-splitting!
But in this class, I was mindful of the fact that being the only black person I would concede so easily to a well-heeled perception if I failed.
Looking back, I wouldn’t think racism is as bad as we let it look.
Its like a climbing a hill, you come off better toned and physically able-bodied, though at first very mentally and physically draining.
Requires strong mental posture and discipline, though.
When black people whinge about racism you really wonder if they hadn’t a hint of tribalism in their own African clime.
In some churches in Africa, you couldn’t amount to anything if you don’t speak a particular language.
Infact the way the white man managed to build a culture of ‘equal opportunity’ is as beautiful as it is creative. Even if they don’t like you, they can at least manage to utilise your personal resources to build up their own fortunes.
Africa stalls!
In Africa, your country men would rather not give you any chance at all if you were to take the place meant for their own kinsmen. Even if the kinsman was a square peg in a non-existing hole.
Black people who criticise the Whiteman about racism should look back to the African clime how nepotism has whacked rich and endowed nations into shanties. Its as bad as that.
Tribalism in Africa! Racism in Europe!
To make noise about Racism or tribalism and do nothing to improve yourself or revved up your inner energy is a pitiful self-sulking.
Certainly, racism or Tribalism does not require you prove to your fellow human how good and desirable you are, but sure wakes you up to the elements of your personal potentials and how you need to use them to fully express yourself in the context of who you are and your personal abilities.
You are not doing so to escape the social optics of a critical majority who see you as a failure and a lower being. Just that you must live up to your entire fullness. You!
Racism or tribalism make you aware of the mountains you needed to climb to reach the treasure trove somewhere, somehow!
It opens up the nozzles of your 6-cylinder engine and make you aware you need to use them to the full if you must throttle past the gravity of your new limitations as a foreigner.
Racism has come to stay, so has tribalism and they are not going anywhere soon, so you better learn to live with them.
If a 6-litre engine car can go as fast as it can and gets to where it hopes to, in good time, why should it have to stow away in the slow lane?
Cars thrive in the character of their design to optimise the capacities and functions they were designed to achieve and the tougher the terrain the better for them.
Racism, just like fear can either freeze or free your inner power.
I would rather it frees yours!
Mind you I passed the PRINCE 2 exam in good marks!
