Njiakin 1

Consciousness

In my junior of year high schools U.S. History course, my teacherMr.

Cochranhad assigned a yearlong thematic project that was intended to provide us with

a more integral understanding of our countrys history. He wanted to ensure that we

would all be prepared for the Advanced Placement Examination at the years end. The

unit wed arrived at late in the first semester was concerned with slavery in the

antebellum south. Mr. Cochran believed that the years examination would draw heavily

from this period in American history. To allow for us to garner a more comprehensive

understanding of the era, we were assigned primary documents to analyze, novels to

peruse, as well as movies and documentaries to watchuncomfortably vivid movies and

documentaries.

I could tell that most of my classmates felt awash with relief on days when

History Channel clips were on the agenda. I didnt share their sentiments. I knew how

scenarios like this transpired; Id experienced them my entire life and I knew how this

particular subject matter could quickly alter a rooms mood.

Mr. Cochran turned down the lights and raised the projectors volume. Twenty

minutes into the documentary, and it felt as if the room had been submerged leagues

under the sea. The airs tension thickened. Signs of discomfort and distaste fell across the

classroom. My classmates shifted in their seats as we confronted history with visuals of

scarred and mutilated backs, as we saw humans unclothed, chained and on display like

cattle, as we listened to accounts of children being stripped from their mothers arms and

tried to make out the woeful lyrics of black spirituals. A few girls sitting next to me
 Njiakin 2

seemed to stop themselves from wincing at the audio of lashings only to widen their eyes

and look to me when the word nigger reverberated from the speakers. Their leers were

followed by dozens of other pairs of eyes peeking over to my desk through sidelong

glances. Some tried not look; I know they did. Their brains were just making

connections, relating what they were seeing on the projector to something more tangible

and immediate, something like methe only black kid in the class. As one of only a

handful of black students in my high schools entirety, I frequently found myself in

situations such as this one. Situations where the consciousness of my ethnicity was

magnified in a group setting, usually due to its connotation to something like slavery, or

segregation, or the Obama Administration. But regardless of the frequency at which it

occurred, I never got used to the feelingthe consciousness.

I didnt care for that painful state of awareness. The one in which I was forced to

accept the asphyxiating guilt and uneasiness layering over the room, then subsequently

repelled by facial expressions that stating:

This has nothing to do with me.

Im going to puke.

I had no part in this, this happened, like, a million years ago.

Well, this is awkward.

I bet he hates everyone in this room right about now.

Youre the reason Im being forced to look at all of these naked black people.

Woah, they just used the N-word.

I despised being put in situations like that. I hated every minute of having to feel

self-conscious about being me and having what that meant redefined before my very
 Njiakin 3

eyes. I didnt ask for this, I thought. Im not even from here. Im Cameroonian. This isnt

my history; Im not even African-American, Im just black. I told myself whatever I could

to propel away the reality of my isolationthe fact of how different I was from everyone

else in the room. I didnt want to have to acknowledge the disposition of pity that was so

often directed towards blacks throughout American history.

I consciouslyand maybe even a little subconsciouslydistanced myself from

black history and culture. It didnt take too much of an effort on my part, either. Growing

up in a rural suburb of eastern Kansas, I often found myself as the most diversifying

factor of the many circles of which I was a part. All of my friends were white; my

teachers were white, as were my cross-country coaches, as were my teammates, my

favorite television personalities, musicians, and role models. I didnt see how my

environments homogeny could be considered problematic. In many regards, I was

obsessively opposed to satisfying any of the stereotypes that I was meant to fall under

solely because I was black and lived in America. So the fact that my life outside of home

lacked so much diversity, meant very little to me.

But when my peers reproached me with concerns about the way I talked, claiming

I didnt sound black or that I was the whitest black person theyd ever metI was

hurled into a state of ire. What had they expected? Was I not a product of the same

environment they were? Should I have forced myself to act out of character or take on a

persona that better suited the media portrayal of African-Americans? No. I wouldnt

change myself to make others more comfortable with the idea of me. I wasnt an idea at

all. I was, and am, a person. I refused to conform to the faces of the box they sought to

put me in. But the more I was confronted with such ignorant ideaswith guys at lunch
 Njiakin 4

asking me why it was that I hadnt packed watermelon or fried chicken in my lunchbox

the more conscious I became of how outwardly different I was from everyone else, and

the more I sought to mute the parts of me that alienated me from the majority.

I soon found my experiences in senior year English would prove to greatly alter

how I chose to perceive my identity. Our teacher had assigned us readings of works of

literary merit that ranged from The Scarlet Letter to Catch-22. However, The novel that

impacted me most was Toni Morrisons Beloved. It dealt with a lot of controversial

themes, many of them laden with race relations and even slavery. I had anticipated not

enjoying the bookmost likely because its author was black and my peers might have

expected me to. The class discussions seemed like another opportunity for me to distance

myself from others preconceived notions of me. I knew they would expect me to be

infuriated by the subject matter, to have a lot to say about Sethes escape from slavery, to

be moved more than other students in the classroom, and as much as I didnt want to

prove them rightI did. I loved the novel. Beloved moved me. It was written so

beautifully, like a poem drawn out into hundreds of pages. It dealt with inequity,

prejudism, poverty, and other issues that enraged me. As I raced to the last page, I only

wanted to experience more of Morrisons writing. Immediately after putting the novel

down, I checked out another one of the authors revered works, Paradise.

Paradise is brimming with flashbacks, complex themes, and symbols weaving

into one another. It was very disorienting for me, initially, and I was forced to read

almost every chapter multiple times to take away the full extent of its beauty. What has

stayed with me, though, is the overarching concept of the story. Its narrative follows the

turmoil existing within an all black town (Ruby) in Oklahoma as well as the issues that
 Njiakin 5

arise between it and a neighboring convent. The idea of a town existing anywhere, a

prosperous one, composed of thoroughly principled and idealistic residents resonated

within me. I couldnt believe it. What a concept, I thought. How could Morrison have

even come up with such an idea?

Throughout all of my education, Id only known African-American history to be

depicted in piteous hues. In elementary school, I recall efforts being made during Black

History Month to inform students of the accomplishments of black men and women

throughout American history and how they contributed to bettering our country. The

examples of Harriet Tubman and Martin Luther King Jr. always gave me the impression

that successful blacks were anomaliesindividuals that had to overcome large-scale

adversity before gaining recognition. I could have never imagined whole townseven

prior to integrationfull of successful black people that improved their livelihoods

independently and despite being voided of the legal rights that checked their upward

mobility. I did some research on the inspiration for Paradises town of Ruby, Oklahoma

and discovered accounts of prosperous black communitiesincluding Tulsas

Greenwood district. I was upset that I had only just uncovered this parcel of American

history and was surprised at how much I cared.

At its prime, the Greenwood district of Tulsa was representative of the

resounding prosperity that the twenties had wrought. Considered a predominately African

American community, Greenwood was often referred to as Little Africa. The idea

perpetuated by early 20th century Greenwood was that everyone possessed a right to

opportunity. The area had, for years, attracted blacks on the principle that it posed as a

racism-free environment, viable for individual betterment and growth. The community
 Njiakin 6

was exceptionally successful and featured nearly two hundred businesses including

hotels, law offices, a theater, physicians offices, and even a skating rink. Greenwood

avenue, the anchor to the districts commercial base, would come to be known nationally

as the Black Wall Street.

My history teachers had hardly grazed the crux of African-American history.

Everything I had been exposed to forced me to feel embarrassed, victimized, and grateful

for being born generations past the plight of slavery and segregation. The concept of

black history and pride existed in complete dissonance in my head. In an attempt to

afford myself some peace of mind, I sought to distance myself from African-American

culture and history without realizing the detrimental effects of my efforts. In voiding the

past I was detaching myself from a demographic I would later heavily identify with, only

to seek refuge in one that I would always feel insulated from. I found myself in a limbo

space until I could bridge the gap where my teachers had faltered.

I hadnt realized how much it meant to me to know that blacks werent simply a

debilitated and wounded race in America. Id always thought that acknowledging the

accomplishments of a single ethnicityas opposed to the human race in general

promoted competition among racial groups and disparaged them even more. But that

wasnt the case. I gained a sense of pride in knowing that black peopleregardless of the

fact that they were African-Americans and not Africanswere more than just slaves and

victims of Jim Crows South. I learned that I didnt have to distance myself from my

racial identity to assuage my discomfort at the horrific events tied to black peoples

history within this country. I was motivated to learn more about the parts of history that I
 Njiakin 7

felt Id been deprived of, to look back upon more points of pride and to be more

conscious of the balance in both positive and negative aspects of Americas black history.