The One on Looking African

Previously published for BGLH

I didn’t know I was African until I left Africa.

A loaded statement, this is, as it is one coming from a Nigerian; an Igbo girl.  Nonetheless, it is exactly the way I used to feel, before my family relocated back to the States from Nigeria.  Until I left the confines of my father country, declaring me as an African person seemed to be a factor of redundancy- a statement of the obvious.  It was obvious that I was African; just as it was obvious that I was black or that I was a girl.  These facts were so obvious that I had the luxury of never having to consciously think about them.  What needed to be reinforced to the world, were primarily  my father’s name, as the weight of it, in Igbo culture lies heavily on ones shoulders, and my education, in that, Nigerians place education at the foreground of importance, right after religion, respect, and family duty.  

When we moved back to the US, I quickly realized that not only was I now “African”, and that I singlehandedly was constantly expected to represent a billion people, but also, that being virtually anything other than “that African girl” was considered an upgraded existence.  I have had a countless number of people believe that they were complimenting me by their reassurance that I didn’t look ‘African”.  Some would wonder about my last name, but upon seeing or hearing me, and then subsequently discovering that I was in fact Nigerian, I would receive a range of responses from:

“Oh wow! You’re African??”  

“I thought you were just ‘regular’ black”. 

“Oh! So, THAT explains your features!”

Ultimately, the catch-all response that I undoubtedly always receive is, “Well, you don’t look it”.

I’ve often been hit with conflicting emotions wavering between shame that somehow, I didn’t have readily identifiably African features, whatever they were, and pleasure that I was in a sense, disrupting the status quo, and dispelling the myth of what it means to look African.

 Ten or even twenty years ago, identifying as the African kid was the uncoolest thing anyone could claim.  It was something to hide, and if hiding it proved to be impossible, then distancing yourself from all things African was apropos.  As a smart and quiet kid who stayed out of trouble and obeyed the rules, I was already virtually invisible in school, however, latch on the fact that I was all those things plus African, and all of a sudden, there was something a bit more interesting or peculiar about me.  I remember an instance when a teacher told me that he just knew I was African because of my “big features”.  I also remember cringing inwardly as he emphatically stressed that my African look basically boiled down to my full lips.  That day, as I sat in his classroom, I fiercely wished that I could be the complete opposite of what he thought was the African look.  I wanted to be thinner lipped and lighter skinned, solely to force him to recognize that his so-called African look, as dominating as the idea was, was a fallacy.    

Whenever the African phenotype is mentioned, the stock image is usually the stereotypically flat description of dark skin, full lips and backsides, wide noses, and highly textured hair.  To delve into the misconception even further, let’s lay out all the cards and attach “poor”, “dirty”, “backwards” and “starving” to the description.  People seem to find it difficult to reconcile the notion that there are just as many people who might look this way, as there are people throughout the continent who don’t, but still identify as African, and that these people also fall into all levels of social status.  It is irritatingly amusing when we allow ourselves to mindlessly gorge on misinformation dispensed by myths and media, and we continue to dismiss people for not fitting a narrow margin of the supposed African look. 

Shouldn’t it go without mention that different people identify as African, and that the current categories should be expanded?  However, common sense ideas often seem to be the hardest to understand or implement.  For instance, with a country like Nigeria, which is an arbitrary amalgamation of hundreds of ethnicities from Fulani to Igbo, facial features and body types vary incredibly.  If we step outside of Nigeria, we can examine the Sudan- the largest country on the continent, where both supermodel Alek Wek and famous musician Mohammed Wardi hail from.  They look amazingly different, and yet, by looking at them, I imagine uninformed people would assume only Alek as the “pure African”.  None of these regions are homogenous, and prevailing features run the gamut from the deepest to the fairest of complexions.  Let’s continue to extrapolate that example and apply it to Africans in the diaspora, basically, accounting for all people of African descent.   We can include Colombians to Canadians, Americans to Argentinians- (at least, those who readily claim their African-ness) ; people who are a definite mixed bag of backgrounds, and now, all of a sudden, that catch-all African phenotype begins to dissolve.  

The African look is a multi-dimensional one, and we shouldn’t rely entirely on the media to provide accurate information.  However, we should constantly challenge ourselves to think outside the proverbial box and to question ourselves, because in doing so, we can expand our familiarities, and in turn, challenge the status quo.