How My African Identity Was Erased By White Supremacy

Colonialism is another form of white supremacy that seeks to establish white culture as superior to black and brown ones.

Colonialism seeks to erase the identity of the oppressed by replacing it with white societal beliefs and values. Its objective is to suppress all diversity, it is perenially insidious and destructive.

I am from a small country in Africa called Sierra Leone. People always wonder why a nation in West Africa would be called Sierra Leone — they always think that with a name like that, the country would most certainly be located somewhere in South America or even in Spain, but it isn’t.

If you look at the map of Africa, it’s right there at the very west of the continent, on the Atlantic Ocean, nestled between Guinea and Liberia. It’s tiny — about the size of Switzerland with a population of about 7.5 million souls.

You see, when I lived in Sierra Leone, I was taught that the English had colonized my country from 1808–1961 and that we had peacefully gained our independence on April 27, 1961.

The general consensus was that the English were good people that had done good things in Sierra Leone. In fact, when they left in 1961, the national currency, the Leone, was on par with the British pound. All Sierra Leoneans could choose between having a British passport or a Sierra Leonean passport.

For the longest time, I looked up to the British. I think the way the English history books were written made me see the English as heroes, as people who had positively contributed to Sierra Leone. The reality however was very different. They pillaged and exploited my people and our natural resources. They were the worst thing that could ever happen to my country.

Sierra Leone was occupied — not discovered by Portuguese sailors in 1462. As they approached the coast, they heard loud thunder in the mountains. They assumed that there were lions in those very mountains and quickly thought to name the place Sierra — mountain in Portuguese, Leo — lion. When I think of how haphazardly a land that belonged to the Bantu tribes for centuries was hastily renamed to satisfy the imperialist whims of Portuguese sailors, I cringe.

Sierra Leone was later sold to the British who were looking to absolve their guilt from the slave trade by purchasing a plot of land for freed slaves to return to. So in a nutshell, this was how Sierra Leone was born.

From the moment the white man set foot in Sierra Leone and on the African continent overall, he sought to establish himself as superior to Africans. All of our cultures, traditions, and beliefs were voluntarily and systematically suppressed and erased.

We were taught to embrace the culture, values, and beliefs of our white supremacist colonialist oppressors.

All we learned sang their praise and glory. They sent missionaries to convert entire swathes of our population to Christianity. There is nothing wrong with Christianity in and of itself but it is my firm belief that using violence to convert people to it runs contrary to all the values of Christianity.

By way of white supremacy, colonialists sought to completely erase my history, my culture, my identity. Even my name was changed from Tibbins to Stevens because they couldn’t pronounce the deep guttural sound required to say Tibbins properly.

In the past, our culture relied on an oral tradition — meaning that our traditions and beliefs were passed on from generation to generation through word of mouth. This channel of passing down knowledge was extremely vulnerable and made it easier for colonialists to erase our identities.

There are only a few historians alive today that know about the history of Sierra Leone before the colonialists arrived. With the passing time, many are no longer here to recount the tales of old. The reality of what happened before the colonialists set foot in my country.

I want to make it my life’s mission to build a collection of resources about the true history of Sierra Leone. My children need to know that their lineage is combined with that of noble Madingo, Limba, Temne, and Mende kings and queens of a time long gone, but of a time that still existed nevertheless.

They need to know about their ancestors to be proud of their African heritage.

What many people don’t realize, is that Africa was not simply waiting for Europeans to discover it. We had thriving kingdoms and we conducted trade with empires all over the world. We were great, but we were too trusting. We trusted the colonialists when they told us that they were coming in peace. They weren’t. They were coming to steal and to plunder our natural resources and we fell victim to their devious machinations.

But what one needs to realize is that in the timeline of our world, colonialism is actually quite recent and only goes back 250 years. Africa cannot let those 250 years define who we are. We need to record our oral traditions to reconstruct our genuine history, culture, and beliefs and pass these on to future generations.

Today, Sierra Leone and many African countries are poor nations — at least by western standards. They continue to be exploited by large multinationals and by other richer countries.

People come to Africa to strip it of its riches without giving anything back in return. In the past, Africa has also had to deal with a massive brain drain whereby the best talent emigrates overseas lured by the hope of a better life.

There is however a paradigm shift happening at this very moment. Many young Africans and people in the diaspora want to return home to help develop their countries. Racism and discrimination are some of the reasons driving this desire to return home.

As a member of the diaspora myself, I would venture to say that the idea of going back to Sierra Leone sometime in the future is quite an appealing one. I often write about how exhausting it is to deal with racism day in day out. No matter what I do, I know that because of my skin color, I will never be fully accepted in Switzerland.

I know that there will be other challenges to address if I return home one day. I know for fact, however, that racism will not be one of them — and that in itself makes going back to Sierra Leone, an idea worth seriously considering.

Thanks for reading my perspective.