A hint of hope

Earlier this week I was all set to write this column on witnessing the historical event of the election of the first female president of the United States of America. I was going to talk about how the story of a nation was changing, about new narratives beginning and old ones being redefined. It would all have been an entryway into talking about the changes that could arise in nations beyond political landscapes when women are in power, the ripple effects across culture and society. But to be honest, I have had the wind entirely knocked out of my sails.

I was born in America and lived there for most of my adult life. For the past few days I have been futilely trying to make sense of how the new President-elect of America came to this position, how a nation chose a man who has not only shown no intelligent or informed political agenda but who also openly and loudly voices his disdain for non White Anglo Saxon People. But to be honest, the more saddening and perhaps frightening thing is that having lived in America, I am actually not completely surprised at these election results. I think I’m just shocked that the country is willing to so blatantly expose its true colors.

I know what it is like to be a black person living in the United States, regardless of socio-economic standing. I cannot imagine non-WASPS in America now anticipating life under a Trump government. But that’s a story for another day. For today, I want to write this particular piece for a little 8year old blond haired, blue-eyed, spectacle-wearing tender-hearted boy that lives in a small town in Midwestern America. His name is Noah and he is my godson.

A day or two after the US elections I got a message from Noah’s mom, telling me how like many, her family was devastated and heartbroken over the results. She also said that at dinner that night Noah, whom I haven’t seen in a few years, suddenly asked if he could face time with his godmother who lives in Nigeria. I read her message and was surprisingly filled with an immediate sense of dread! What on earth would I say to this boy? What if he asked me unanswerable questions? Why does he want to talk to me now and what could be going through his young mind? I thought back to when I was 8 years old, the only other time in my life that I lived in Nigeria before now.

I tried to recollect what my sense of the world had been at that time, what I could remember about what it felt like to be Nigerian living in Nigeria in my little 8-year-old skin. By then I had already spent six years in New York City and had clear memories of my playmates and classmates who were white, Jewish, or whose parents had come from places like Puerto Rico, Poland, China and Guyana. By the age of eight, I already knew that there were many different stories to tell about the world and that those stories could come from people who looked and acted very differently from me.

As I sat thinking about all this it began to dawn on me that somehow Noah too understood this in his own way. Despite what he could sense from the adults in his life talking about the elections, amidst literally hearing snippets of the deplorable narratives Trump has tried to drill into society about non-White Anglo-Saxon people, Noah, remembered that he had a godmother living in Nigeria and for some reason, he wanted to talk to me.

His mother and I are scheduling our face time date and I have no idea what he will say to me or ask me. But I do firmly believe that something inside of him already knows that there are other ways to tell the story of being in the world, that there are other narratives about who is welcome into what spaces, and that it doesn’t always have to come from people who look or act like him. All of a sudden I catch a glimmer of light, and I am reminded of the gift and the responsibility of building a relationship with Noah, of the beautiful fact that being from such different worlds will provide endless opportunities to explore new narratives, redefine old ones and perhaps still eventually change the story of a nation. Even if it is through one child at a time that is still a hint of hope.