“Even a random white man who cannot afford decent housing in a suburb would still assume he is a benefactor to any African he comes across.”
This is the African reality I often struggle to explain in my interactions with non-Africans. It reminds me of a conversation I had with a diverse group of friends in a Western city some years ago. A Nigerian friend had to set aside his humility to challenge the prevailing… pic.twitter.com/J1WQjyJk3g
— Gimba Kakanda (@gimbakakanda) April 20, 2025
This is the African reality I often struggle to explain in my interactions with non-Africans. It reminds me of a conversation I had with a diverse group of friends in a Western city some years ago. A Nigerian friend had to set aside his humility to challenge the prevailing “poverty porn” narrative about Africa. He told the white folks that he was Nigerian and, at the risk of sounding immodest, he was worth more than all of them combined. He wasn’t lying, because I knew them all.
The real struggle has always been the imagination of Africa as a continent where everyone lives in squalor, without nuance or context. So much so that even a random white man who cannot afford decent housing in a suburb would still assume he is a benefactor to any African he comes across, influenced by stereotypical portrayals of the continent.
I have my own stories too, but that is a tale for another day.