The Sophian

Issue date: 11/2/06 Section: Opinions

Living in America for nine years, I've seen everything including celebrations of pumpkins, turkeys, trees and even dead presidents. Growing up in francophone West Africa, I was both annoyed and astonished to see that Americans appreciated so many things that they would put specific days aside just to celebrate them. Years later, I'm still baffled as to why Americans have little or no knowledge of the struggles of African people in the world, especially those of the African child. Why isn't America celebrating the African child?

The black child in America is taught to be conscious of his or her blackness from an early age and is hit with the reality that all people are not made equal the first day he or she interacts with whites. As a black person and former African child, I can tell you firsthand that it is extremely difficult to understand and integrate into the American system. I was born in Bamako, Mali, and for a very long time, I thought about or was made to worry about the color of my skin. I went to school with blacks, was taught by black teachers, the individuals I saw on television were black and the words of each of our elders were filled with optimism and the hope that we could be all that we want in the world as long as we believed it; I believed in my power and ability to do anything I wanted to do until I came to the United States.

Harlem, N.Y., was my first destination before Smith, and the things I saw amazed me. In Africa, when we think of North America we do not think Nicole Kidman or Angelina Jolie but rather Malcom X, Afros, "Black Power" and the blacks of the United States and their strength to remain in a country that once enslaved them. When I began school in Harlem, I was so sad to see the level at which the black children were oppressed. They did not have enough books; they had very little confidence in themselves and took out their anger and frustrations on one another.

These children were black and lived amongst blacks but their educators were not black nor did they understand them. I was from another country and the teachers treated me no differently despite the fact that I was learning about a new language and about a completely different culture. I failed English exams without the mercy of teachers, failed at everything new I tried and almost lost hope in myself, but I had the support of the African community in my neighborhood. Other children in the African community tutored me, and helped me in math, reading and every academic subject. It gave me so much hope to see the hope and optimism I left back home, and that hope kept me fighting.

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