Victoria Olayiwola Blog # 2: From where are you, kind sir?

No one ever stresses it, people normally just say oh I'm from x, I'm from y and I'm from z. No one ever stresses it until somebody goes no, where are you from from? And then the person being asked has that puzzled look on their face because nobody ever stresses it, as I said before. Then they say what do you mean? To which the person asking the question says, I mean where are your parents from?

So when I was asked again and again by Francis I was the perplexed person being questioned and he was the person asking until I went oh yep...ok. In this short blog I hope to adequately answer the question about my origin.

Normally when I am asked where do I come from I just say London because that is normally enough to satisfy the Yanks. But is this where I am really from? Well yes and no. I mean I was born and raised in London so I have adopted London cultural values, British idiosyncrasies, customs and values as a result.

But when somebody asks me, no, where are you from from? Then I ponder and think and give the long answer. That answer being both my parents were born and raised in Nigeria. My dad came to London as a student and my mother joined him later. They became economic migrants when things in Nigeria turned out for the worst and things started to get bad in every sense of the word. This is when they decided to stay in Britain.

But when I give this answer I feel I am giving too much information away, information I would not have had to give away had I just given the short quick answer. Information nobody really wants to know so I always think the short answer is always the best answer.

So despite my being British and choosing to align myself with British-ness, I have a very African upbringing. Discipline, respect and reverence to education was established in our household, maybe not as much as it would have had I been in Nigeria; but even in its weak form, it was still prevalent.

It may be the case that the 'system' created the boxes-that come with question what is your nationality?-with little descriptions of what nationality we are, but every time we tick one of those boxes we are abiding and complying with those restrictions society or the system places on us.  We are accepting the definition those small descriptions next to the boxes offer.

Maybe it is not such a bad thing or maybe it is a bad thing I don't know, I guess it depends on the person but if we think it is bad thing and we comply (we tick the box), how do we expect society to know any better when all we do is comply with the boxes. You know I  used to hate being called black because I am not black, nobody is, neither is anyone white for that matter. But I gave in. I stopped correcting people because everyone else accepted the tag and took no issue. I still take issue with it and the term 'Blacks' but obviously others don't so I keep schtum about it.

If we except these boxes we are saying I fit into this box or this description goes with me (or at least we are saying this description at the very least best defines/describes me), but are we really definable?

I don't think we are. God knows we are so mixed and mixed and mixed all over again, some of us more than others, that the darkest African or the Whitest Briton may look as if they, in such a clear-cut manner, fit into one of the boxes society sets out for us to tick. But they don't, not really. Because if you dig deep, even they are mixed somewhere whether it be a strong mix or a weak one. Down their ancestral line there is a mix somewhere.

But does nationality and where one is from really matter? I mean in the screenings, especially the first one (Triumph of Will) where the Rodney King was mercilessly beaten and Latasha Harlins was shot at point blank range, race would have forced me out into the streets. I didn't have to be American and as you see most American "rebelling"/"rioting" (very charged words) were black not white Americans. So it was not really a nationality thing. A combination of cause (the injustice the fact the family got $500 dollars and Du got probation whilst Latasha's funeral cost $7500*) and race (the fact they were both black) would have forced me to sing if it was my thing (like Ice Cube who wrote a song called “Black Korea,” about the murder) or riot if that was my thing. Therefore the role nationality plays in our lives and how much weight it carries is questionable. 

Source: http://www.southcentralhistory.com/la-riots.php

So in my endeavour to comply with the boxes society sets out I will say I am Black British not because this is what I really am but rather because this best defines me.

On the question of race vs nationality and which precedes the other in importance, well that remains questionable. For me race means more to me than nationality but this cannot be said to be the case for everyone. And this cannot be said to be the case for me all the time. I guess it must be measured on a case by case basis. But it is a valid question worth being asked.

However to conclude I must say that unfortunately, those small boxes with their small descriptions can never describe us for what we really are. They only go so far.

Really, I am undefinable. Take my word for it, none of us are.

*estimate