My name is Adeife Alfred Kofi Olatokunbo Abiodun King Showunmi. I am a second generation African British citizen in England. I am the son of Abiodun Wole Showunmi and Hannah Sophia Baaba Dougan. I was raised in North West London in the 1990's. I was a Brit being raised by Africans, although I aggressively disassociated myself from England's culture. If you ask me why this is, I will tell you I was an African and proud. At my primary and secondary schools African Brits were a rarity and we were often the subject of primitive related jokes (which I would later understand to be racism). It was hard, even to socialize with Caribbean British communities proved a challenge. I often felt that they autonomously adopted a state of self proclaimed pompousness. I felt as if they assumed that being in England longer than Africans somehow gave them authority to be better than us. Nonetheless I was never one to surrender my culture as beneath another which is something my parents galvanized in me however they were extremely explicit about having work ethic that was greater than my Caucasian counterparts. To be brutally honest I may have sold out on my culture a bit , most of you know who know me will notice that I generally used Alfred as my first name out fear of ridicule and also I came under the impression that it made employers look at my CV differently.
Any way I digress, I am a university and I worked both a blue and a white collar job at the age of 25. I have a wide variety of friends from many cultures and socio economic groups.
However it seems apparent that I have consistently been a cynic of cultural and racial harmony. There was a time I truly thought times were changing until I entered the world on my own without parents and my intellectual curiosity developed. I am constantly seeing EDL and BNP media being posted freely on social media and via traditional means and I have on numerous occasions been the target of overt racial abuse throughout my life be it the insults or the threat of physical violence. It is still a vexing experience. It makes me wonder whether racism and xenophobia is a relic in British culture and whether the nation chooses to ignore it.
This isn't the case in only England however. The USA is still quite open about the their derogatory stereotypes down south. It was brought to my attention by a mentor of mine that despite having a black president, the conduct of Congress while in session when arguing against Obamacare amongst other issues was abhorrent. shutting down valid arguments for Obamacare with the most inexplicably minor objections I wont speculate into whether it was racially motivated but I was definitely given the impression of that in our conversation. Again Obama has been recently bashed by Fox Network for his comparison of the Christian Crusades on Islamic nations and Slavery being justified by Christianity (which is also my religion) to ISIS being justified by Islam. However long ago it was and how one wants to interpret it, what the President said are facts. The state of cultural prosperity isn't helped by the further murdering of unarmed black US citizens by BOTH civilians and police officers in 2014. Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Rumain Brisbon just to name a few.
LA rapper Kendrick Lamar voiced his opinion on the state black culture in modern western society. It was both inflammatory swipe at western society but also interestingly so; a criticism of black culture much closer to home. All in all it saddens me that people including some of my own friends seem to almost ignore and sometimes run from the issue.
Just to clarify I am not a black supremacist, I am not an ISIS sympathizer I am just a an aspiring professional who is disappointed with the state of affairs in the West.
Any way I digress, I am a university and I worked both a blue and a white collar job at the age of 25. I have a wide variety of friends from many cultures and socio economic groups.
However it seems apparent that I have consistently been a cynic of cultural and racial harmony. There was a time I truly thought times were changing until I entered the world on my own without parents and my intellectual curiosity developed. I am constantly seeing EDL and BNP media being posted freely on social media and via traditional means and I have on numerous occasions been the target of overt racial abuse throughout my life be it the insults or the threat of physical violence. It is still a vexing experience. It makes me wonder whether racism and xenophobia is a relic in British culture and whether the nation chooses to ignore it.
This isn't the case in only England however. The USA is still quite open about the their derogatory stereotypes down south. It was brought to my attention by a mentor of mine that despite having a black president, the conduct of Congress while in session when arguing against Obamacare amongst other issues was abhorrent. shutting down valid arguments for Obamacare with the most inexplicably minor objections I wont speculate into whether it was racially motivated but I was definitely given the impression of that in our conversation. Again Obama has been recently bashed by Fox Network for his comparison of the Christian Crusades on Islamic nations and Slavery being justified by Christianity (which is also my religion) to ISIS being justified by Islam. However long ago it was and how one wants to interpret it, what the President said are facts. The state of cultural prosperity isn't helped by the further murdering of unarmed black US citizens by BOTH civilians and police officers in 2014. Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Rumain Brisbon just to name a few.
LA rapper Kendrick Lamar voiced his opinion on the state black culture in modern western society. It was both inflammatory swipe at western society but also interestingly so; a criticism of black culture much closer to home. All in all it saddens me that people including some of my own friends seem to almost ignore and sometimes run from the issue.
Just to clarify I am not a black supremacist, I am not an ISIS sympathizer I am just a an aspiring professional who is disappointed with the state of affairs in the West.
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