How My African Identity Was Erased By White Supremacy

Colonialism is another form of white supremacy that seeks to establish white culture as superior to black and brown ones.

Photo by Ayo Ogunseinde on Unsplash

Colonialism seeks to erase the identity of the oppressed by replacing it with white societal beliefs and values. Its objective is to suppress all diversity, it is perenially insidious and destructive.

I am from a small country in Africa called Sierra Leone. People always wonder why a nation in West Africa would be called Sierra Leone — they always think that with a name like that, the country would most certainly be located somewhere in South America or even in Spain, but it isn’t.

If you look at the map of Africa, it’s right there at the very west of the continent, on the Atlantic Ocean, nestled between Guinea and Liberia. It’s tiny — about the size of Switzerland with a population of about 7.5 million souls.

You see, when I lived in Sierra Leone, I was taught that the English had colonized my country from 1808–1961 and that we had peacefully gained our independence on April 27, 1961.