Today, I saw two tweets that had me feeling two different ways.
The content of the first made me cringe a little and feel somewhat entertained. The other fueled me with an anger I knew was already pent up; an anger I have expressed one too many times on this series.
Here is a tweet by … Here, a person by the social media name “WhiteOyinbo” shows her straight hair – which she calls “oyinbo hair” – turning into a curly one – which she called “Nigerian hair”. i found that cringy because no Nigerian hair looks like that. However, far from what the poster suggests, I did not find it offensive at all. In fact, as I scrolled down the tweet, I saw more videos of this lady continuously referenicing Nigeria, I grew more entertained. This one, I found slightly funny.
As I read through the comment, I stumbled on an altercation between someone who appears to be an African American (AA) and a Nigerian (N). The AA was offended about the lady’s video, but the N tackled it by saying, “we do not gate keep our culture like you do. That was when I stumbled on the second tweet that abolutely pissed me off.
I’d like to clarify a few things that may be relevant to your understanding of this tweet:
- I don’t subscribe to gatekeeping a culture. By gatekeeping, I mean attacking people who engange in wearing certain clothes, eating certain meals, speaking/saying words/phrases/sentences, or acting in ways that are typically linked a particular culture. For example, I don’t necessarily think it is offnensive for a Western woman to do braids.
- However, I draw strong line at blatant direspect, lies, or theft of hard facts. For example, Mungo Park did not discover River Nile. How silly it is that people are being taught this. Similarly, civilisation was not brought to African by Western ex-pats.
- Referring to any group of people as “black” or “white” does not sit well with me. So, I largely avoid doing that.