IMAGINATION VS REALITY

Moving to the United Kingdom has been one of the most difficult and at the same time, the best experience I have. I had so many expectations and I was anxious. I was anxious about the new environment, if there was any difference in the air I breathe compared to my home country (…obviously, there was…), what snow felt like, etc. Basically, I wanted to know if it was the same experience as portrayed on television. Quite all right, all these feelings were amazing, and it was exactly as portrayed, but I was shocked by the reality of things. How in a country as technologically and mentally developed like the UK, racial discrimination still existed in some environment. 

When I arrived in the UK in 2018, I lived in an environment populated by elderly white people. I have never felt racially discriminated in my whole life like I did in this environment. I come from a country populated by only blacks, whenever we see somebody with a different skin color, we are in a kind of way excited and treat the person with more suspect and a sense of superiority than we would our fellow blacks. So, coming into an environment populated by elderly white people who saw young black males as threats and dangerous to the environment was a total and new scenario for me. I never been taught how to deal with such before, I have never experienced such before, I have only seen it on TV and I never knew it hurt this much. It was so bad that they will literally move to the other side of the road when we are approaching them on the sidewalk and cross back after we have passed by. Obviously, it wasn’t common among the middle-aged and young adults, but it was so bad among some population of the elderlies. I tried to understand why individuals in this generation and timeline still treated their fellow human unequally depending on the color of their skin. Then I realized that majority of them were born when the blacks were still slaves to the time, so they find it difficult to look beyond that. Some of them have been exposed to the most ‘gangsterous’ behaviour of blacks trying to fight for their freedom and with the amount of knife related crimes perpetuated by blacks in this era, one can understand the reason for their behaviour, but it is still unacceptable. 

Another baffling experience I had to go through when I arrived in the United Kingdom was passing across information -communication- OMG! Never have I ever thought that communicating with somebody else in the same language could be such a huge issue (Dear Nigerians, please take your phonetics/spoken English/oral English/whatever they call it in your school serious!!! you don’t know where you will find yourself tomorrow). It was so bad, one day I can remember so vividly was when I went to the pharmacy to get ‘paracetamol’. It was the one of the most embarrassing situations I have found myself in. It took the help of a black lady after 15mins of back and forth trying to pronounce ‘paracetamol’ correctly before they were able to understand me.  

All my experiences arriving in the UK has not all been awful, it has been a privilege. I mean, the things we saw as luxury in Nigeria, they enjoy here as basic amenities. Nothing like the chorus shout of “Up NEPA” anymore, free WIFI, good road, free medical services, quality education, excellent transportation services etc. So far, the best experiences I have had are the people I’ve met while in the UK. I mean, they have been awesome, supportive, nice etc. 

I’ve met people that impacted my life within the first few days I met them. I became close friends with some after one/two conversations. I have 2 hours conversations with people and these are intellectually stimulating conversations, not the regular BS conversations you have with Nigerians youth. 

I met a young lady smart, pretty, attractive and the likes, I had a conversation with her and she managed to change my preconception about young lady. I was amazed that such a lady still existed, I could say I fell in love on the spot, I mean, I have never met anyone like her even the ones that pretend to be the holiest are not anything like her. Her morals are off the charts, I mean, I could tag her “the best lady ever”.  

All what I have been trying to say is that, don’t let your imagination of the world or your preconception about the world affect the way you treat people or interact with people. We all have our own imagination of how things should be or how things are. Have you realized that most of the time, when you plan, things end up not going according to that plan. Its simply because people change daily, similar situation produce different outcomes. Because I am black does not mean I am inferior to you, or it does not make me a gangster or a thief. We should all try to treat everyone equally, enter a new environment with an open mind that anything can happen so you don’t end up been disappointed at the outcome of events.