Are you doing it for your family?

Abstract

My piece is a reflection on my development of a racial consciousness and my unlearning of the mindset that governed my life due to my growing up in the majority black Uganda. While I was aware of the various injustices that people of colour are subject to and the racism that undergirds various social systems in the Western hemisphere, my lack of lived experience barred me from properly empathizing and led me to believe that I didn’t have to identify as a “black man”. I quickly unlearned this upon embarking on my university education; The things I have experienced and the aggressions I have been subject to forced me to realize that race is not a matter of politics or choice, or something inconsequential and arbitrary; Race and the stereotypes that accompany it are real and heavy. My unlearning has consisted of abandoning the mindset that I can extricate myself from racial tensions, and learning that my body will always be marked irrespective of where I am situated.