For too long, Africa’s story has been told by others, often rewritten, misinterpreted, and reduced. But a new generation is beginning to reclaim the narrative and redefine black identity with pride and truth.

For too long also, history was written with one hand and erased with the other. We were taught to measure our worth against borrowed mirrors, to see genius only in faces not our own. We were told that innovation had a colour, that civilisation began in the West, that the world was discovered only when someone else mapped it. But we have awakened, and the lie is over. Our melanin is not a curse. It is not proof of lesser intelligence or greater pain. It is a gift of resilience, protection, and endurance, but it does not define the boundaries of our mind. Our brilliance is human, not tinted. Our capacity is divine, not imported.

Before machines and maps and colonies, there was Kemet, Kush, Mali, Benin, Songhai, builders of cities, keepers of stars, healers of the body and soul. We did not begin in chains; we were interrupted. Our stories were buried under someone else’s narrative of “discovery.” Our pyramids were studied, our art stolen, our gods renamed. Yet still, the drum beats on, proof that something eternal within us refuses to die.

We are young nations, still finding our feet. Nigeria is barely 65. Ghana, not far ahead. Yet we compare our growth to systems that have existed for hundreds of years, nations that have had the privilege of trial and error, blood and reform, until they found their rhythm. America took centuries to find stability; the United Kingdom stumbled through monarchs, revolutions, and world wars before becoming what it is today.

So give us a break. We are not late; we are becoming. Our progress may be uneven, but it is progress nonetheless. Across the continent, there are sparks of brilliance in technology, in arts, in medicine, in literature. From Lagos to Nairobi, from Accra to Kigali, innovation is emerging from classrooms and kitchens, from start-ups built on borrowed laptops, from dreams that refuse to die in the face of hardship.

Corruption is not African; it is human. It only wears different clothes. Here, it wears Agbada. There, it wears a tie. The difference is not morality; it is management. The systems that punish wrongdoing elsewhere are often weak here, and that is part of what we must rebuild, not as an admission of inferiority, but as an act of self-respect.

Still, what is most painful today is not only the corruption of systems, but the corruption of belief, when our own elders begin to echo the very lies that once chained them. When those who should protect our identity begin to poison it with inferiority.

Because even fools grow old. When a man like Jesse Lee Peterson, an older black man, says “white people are more innovative,” he isn’t speaking truth, he’s echoing trauma. He is rubbing his ignorance on his own people, and too many are taking it in hook, line, and sinker.

Ninety per cent of the comments under such clips agree. That is the tragedy. For ignorance, when repeated by an elder, sounds like wisdom to the unhealed.

It is dangerous when trauma becomes gospel. It is dangerous when people begin to believe that salvation lies in someone else’s skin. And it is tragic when those who should be mentors become mirrors of oppression.

I once believed that lie too. I thought something was wrong with me, wrong with us. I thought the white man was pure and higher, and that we were the problem. But I know better now.

Our nations are young. Our systems are growing. Our people are still healing from what I call colonial PTSD, the residue of years of exploitation, fear, and self-doubt. We inherited borders drawn by strangers, faiths filtered through conquest, and languages that carried other people’s superiority.

So yes, sometimes our leadership is flawed, our priorities misplaced, our greed unrestrained. But these are symptoms of recovery, not proof of inferiority.

We are learning to rebuild confidence that was systematically dismantled. And we are learning to define success on our own terms, not by comparison to centuries-old empires.

Look around: the world is already feeding on our brilliance. Our doctors, engineers, coders, writers, and artists are shaping the future, often beyond our borders. Our music drives global culture; our fashion influences catwalks; our creators redefine digital spaces.

The West is importing our minds, our creativity, our rhythm. Africa’s greatest export is no longer just resources, it’s intellect. We are coming. We are learning. We are switching back to the plug, reconnecting to the source of our identity, our heritage, our pride.

The same continent once stripped and shamed is now becoming the world’s cultural heartbeat again. The same people once enslaved now build the technologies that connect humanity.

To the elders who have lost faith, please, do not mislead those still finding their way. Do not turn your pain into prophecy. Your disappointment in your generation must not become a death sentence for the next. Teach them how to hope again. Teach them how to build better. But do not teach them to despise themselves.

Our children deserve a narrative of dignity. They must grow up seeing that their minds are limitless, that their dreams are valid, that they can innovate, create, and lead, not because they are black, but because they are human. Humanity is not hierarchical. Civilisation is not a colour.

We will not inherit your ignorance; we will inherit our truth. Because even fools grow old, but the wise evolve. And we have chosen to evolve.
Africa is not a failed experiment; it is an unfinished masterpiece. We are still in the making, still sculpting identity from the dust of trauma, still learning that the past does not define the future.

So, when someone next says, “We need more white people in the world,” remember, the world doesn’t need more whiteness; it needs more humanity. It needs empathy, equity, and shared genius.

The black child does not need to bleach to shine. The black mind does not need permission to imagine. The black continent does not need saving; it needs space to breathe, to heal, to grow, to lead.

And we will. Because the awakening has begun.
King is a writer, poet, and creative advocate for African Innovation and Cultural Awakening.