Ayo Sokale

I was once asked ‘What being black meant to me’. I can recall my automatic robotic answer – excellence, resilience. All nonsense rhetoric now I reflect on it. So here are my reflections on it now: What does it mean to be black? When I relocated back to the UK, at the age of 9. This is the first time I recall being described as black. After all, before that point I was my parent’s child and simply a Nigerian. However, I would come to understand over time that being black was a different kind of identifier to one such a being a Nigerian. I would learn that being Black is a title with a heavy history – one that causes some people shame and discomfort when they think of the slavery so heavily associated with blackness in their minds. I would also learn that it a very well marketed idea. After all, just look at negative tropes and motifs associated with blackness in movies and TV at least until more recent re-imagining.