So...this is my first post in a while. A friend recently asked me when I'm going to write another blog post (thanks for the conviction lol) and it quickly made me realise that I've turned this into more of a summer stress reliever, as I'm always creating the excuse that I'm 'too busy' during uni term times. I also didn't want to turn it into a platform where I was forcing myself to release constant content just to be seen or to be present. If I was going to write something, I needed to feel it and 'ponder on it', whatever that means.
Well, all this aside, I've been 'pondering' for far too long, plus I currently have two weeks free and all the time in the world to finally write a post (I've got many stocked up and coming your way, don't you worry kids).
For my first post back, I thought I'd discuss a topic that has been on my mind for a loooong long time. This is a subject that I relate to on a spiritual level, and I'm sure will relate to a lot of people like me, being black/POC, etc (feel free to replace these terms with whichever one that won't render me 'cancelled', please, and thank you).
Okay, the suspense is killing you, I know. Western culture (British culture from my experiences) and African names (this is the title but let me have my moment).
Ugh, here goes. So, for as long as I can remember, I have had to 'westernise' my name in order for white people to be able to pronounce it. I still do it to this day. For me, my name is pretty short and simple; not long, and no accented letters, but I would pronounce it correctly, as a kid, to white people and receive a confused look in return every time, without fail: 'Can you say that again?' So, I guess I would change it for them in order for it to suit their western accents (I'm not sure how this came about: whether I remixed my name myself or someone said it that way and I decided to roll with it).
This has been a constant experience and I have seen the same face thousands of times, even till this day, and it's frustrating. And many people would say I should just pronounce it as it is and teach people, and I'd love to be the person who takes on that role but having heard people butcher my name literally thousands of times, I'd prefer to protect its pronunciation because I can't come and kill myself every time someone butchers my name.
However, there is a deeper, more painful history behind this, of white slave owners exercising control over their black slaves by changing their 'unpronounceable' names and giving black people their own surnames, and I believe this has carried forward into modern culture, deeming African names 'ridiculous' and impossible to pronounce (the same way many narratives of black people have been proliferated in the media, such as black hair being nappy and unmanageable and many more I could go on to list, but then we'd be here for days).
These names were not deemed important or meaningful enough that white people should even give them legitimacy; somebody's whole NAME, and this laziness/ignorant attitude has carried on into the 21st century.
I recall a day I stayed behind at school for chess club (I was not good at all), and as I sat there, one of my teachers was speaking to one of the ladies running it. The teacher introduced her to me, and the lady asked my name. I said it and saw that same confused look on her face - this time it was almost a smirk as though my name was a joke. The teacher turned to her after I'd said my name and said - right in front of me - 'so many unusual names in these places, right?' clearly referring to my Nigerian origin. This was coming from a woman with a surname that sounded like a type of curtain.
I had always, in the back of my mind, resented my name, for the difficulty I had at school with people mispronouncing it (it's really not that complicated - four letters) and making fun of it. However, watching an interview with Uzo Aduba on Seth Meyers in 2015 had a great impact on me and I remember this every time I feel shamed for not having an 'easier' name to pronounce, or frustrated at how many times I have to repeat it for someone to get it the first time. She relayed an anecdote of a time where she questioned her mother over her choice of name, saying: 'because my last name started with an A, I was the first in roll call, and nobody ever knew how to pronounce it. So, I went home and asked my mother if I could be called Zoe. I remember she was cooking, and in her Nigerian accent she said, "Why?" I said, "Nobody can pronounce it." Without missing a beat, she said, "If they can learn to say Tchaikovsky and Michelangelo and Dostoyevsky, they can learn to say Uzoamaka'.
This reminds me, and I hope it can remind others facing the same daily struggle, that our names are not a burden. In fact, they are beautiful and they mean something (Nigerians love a good meaningful name. In fact, several of them as my birth certificate will tell you) and nobody's ignorance or lack of trying should take that away from us. So, for the next person who tries to tell me my name is difficult to pronounce, I...well, I actually didn't think of what to say after that, but I'll exude the same energy as Mrs Aduba.
(Uzo Aduba quote: https://www.buzzfeed.com/hnigatu/orange-is-the-new-black-star-uzo-aduba-on-why-she-wouldnt-ch)
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