Don’t know about those $19-avocado-toast-guzzling millennials who can’t buy homes, but if Chizoba Imoka is any indication of the generation, the world is in the hands of thought-provoking intellectuals.
The 30-year-old PhD candidate in the Educational Leadership and Policy program at OISE is buzzing this week. On Tuesday, she delivered the Hancock lecture at the University of Toronto to a full hall at Hart House, and on Saturday she is giving a TED talk.
In her talks, she is expertly debunking the myth of a “post-colonial world,” specifically in education, skilfully bringing out the ways in which colonialism exists — not just on lands but in the intellect and mindset.
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Her Tuesday lecture was titled “Black and Educated?” and a day later, she spoke to me of her journey from being African to being Black.
For those who have experienced racism, Imoka’s forthright views represent refreshing relief — here is someone who puts words to what is often a confusing swirl of thoughts and emotions and self-doubt.
“What does it mean for Black people to be educated?” asked Imoka. And when she rattled off a series of definitions: “to be Black and educated is to be dehumanized,” because of the racism students face, for instance, or to “to be Black and educated is to be an agent of your self-destruction and extinction of your culture,” it might seem extreme for those who have not experienced a deliberate and sustained erasure of their own cultures.
But when those who have lived here for centuries go to school and find absolutely nothing to do with their heritage and culture, that silence can embody an inferiority about that heritage, she said. “You go to school and you’re only learning that the beginning of your heritage is from Adam and Eve. Meanwhile, your ancestors pre-date Adam and Eve.”
Another time, Imoka said, “To be Black and educated is to be a precarious worker in addition to be a student.” Again, vigorous nods from the students in attendance.
When Black students go to school and face racism, they then have to spend time explaining why it is racist — to dismissive perpetrators, to the higher authorities and if that comes to nought, to agitate for awareness and action. All this, as Imoka said, is in addition to wanting to finish their degree on time, and excellently.
Imoka, who in 2014 was recognized by the World Economic Forum as an expert in Civic Participation, earned her insights the hard way — experience and study.
She came to Canada as an international student, paying international fees, after having gone to private schools in Nigeria.
“Even though I see myself as an economic migrant, society doesn’t see you that way,” she told me a day after her talk. “Society continues to view you as someone that is enslaved or could have been enslaved or someone that the West needs to save.”
She didn’t think she had much in common with Black people here because they were Canadian and she was Nigerian.
By and by, came racist experiences, both micro and macro.
There was an adviser telling her she did not qualify for the next level because she needed good grades to do so, and after she got great grades, telling her she didn’t qualify because she didn’t go to school in Canada. As it turns out, she did go to school here in her younger days. He just hadn’t bothered to open her file.
Another time, there was a girl in the cafeteria who thought she lost her cellphone. And she went up to a Black man standing nearby and said, “Where is my phone?” And all the while it was in her bag.
“That man could have been my brother,” Imoka said. Then she puts a positive spin to a painful reality.
“Thankfully in Canada, racism has become a unifying force for Black people across the social class.
“So if you treat one person bad, you treat me bad as well.”
Imoka has spoken at high-level international events about alternative paths to development and is a passionate advocate of inclusion of Indigenous cultures in curriculum.
In presenting an alternative vision for Black students, she says they should renegotiate their relationship with education; they should bring their cultural selves to the classrooms, and the school system must see that difference as the site of knowledge.
Then she suggested they renegotiate their relationship with Christianity and their culture.
This is a provocative proposition as religion is foundational to many North American Black lives. But Imoka is unflinching in her view.
“Christianity was essentially the vehicle that led to the destruction that we’re speaking about on the continent. It was the missionaries that opened the door for imperialism to take strong roots.
“We must be out of our minds not to think this is a problem. It’s uncomfortable, I get it. But I think it’s the intellectually upright thing to do, to have a critical reflection on it. I don’t know what the outcome should be.
“If you want to keep Christianity you must restructure it, you must remake it to centre your culture and your history. I would want us to be that intellectually open and fearless to dare to hijack Christianity and make it work for us, not we serving Christianity.”
Shree Paradkar writes about discrimination and identity. You can follow her @shreeparadkar