FINDING GRATITUDE IN 2020
How Does It Feel When the Perpetrators of Racial Segregation Become the Victims?
Living through the pain of the Jim Crow laws
Not having grown up in the United States and completely overwhelmed by the inhumaneness of inherent and systemic racism, I’ve begun reading up on the history of racial discrimination in the U.S.
At this moment in time, we have the medial “in your face” examples of institutionalised racism and its effects. This has led to an increased awareness here in Europe of individual countries’ own dark history and a stronger voicing of grievances among black European communities.
I have a lot of Nigerian family members, including my brother, living in the U.S. Many married, as my brother did, into Black American families. So, I am particularly interested in hearing their stories especially as most of my relatives live in the southern states where anti-Black laws were entrenched for almost a century.
An eye-opener of a moment for me was when I asked my niece, who was over from Atlanta, Georgia, last year visiting family for the first time in Europe, about her experience of racism in the U.S. I knew from her social media pages that she had many white American friends as well as Black. Her reply:
