A Black woman coping in a white world: A Camosun student’s take on trying to live up to Western standards

Whether we like it or not, we live in a society that has high standards. And the pressure to conform to these standards can take a toll on almost anyone’s mental health—it’s impossible for each person to meet every one of those societal expectations. But, as a person of colour, I can tell you that many of these standards are simply unattainable due to the deeply imbedded racism that lies within so many of these expectations.

From beauty standards to behavioural standards, each expectation has had a part in the development of what society portrays as being desirable. And when you are a person of colour whose racial identity—both physically and culturally—are not within the confines of these societal norms, living can feel like a life-long audition that many of us just never get the part for.

As a woman, keeping up with Western beauty norms is a gruelling task. And being a Black woman adds a whole other realm of standards to adhere to, because, for the most part, many of us do not naturally obtain most of these beauty standards. And if we do, they tend to only be appreciated once a white or a white-passing woman makes it trendy. For example, women of colour, especially Black women, have always had full lips. But, when Kylie Jenner debuted her artificially enhanced lips, suddenly big lips became the new fad. When Kim Kardashian started braiding her hair in a way that black women have been styling their hair for centuries, braided hair suddenly became the hottest new hair style.

Now, you could say that keeping up with Western beauty standards is almost as difficult as keeping up with the Kardashians but, all joking aside, why were big lips only considered beautiful once these two white women decided to enhance their naturally small lips?

Undoubtedly, this is due to a colonial construct that signifies whiteness as being superior—this idea has been perpetuated for centuries. And although beauty standards tend to be the most talked about expectation, I rarely hear conversation about the internalized inferiority complex many of us have living in a Western world that has been so influenced by white culture. This is, as one of my good friends once said to me, “the colonized take on the colonizer’s mentality.” And how could we not feel inferior? The desire to fit in is a basic human instinct. For the most part, we all want to feel like we are a part of some sort of community—and that community looks different to everyone, although, generally speaking, we tend to gravitate toward the need to fit in with a dominant group. In Canada and the United States, that dominant group tends to be white.

As a child, I watched how my mother would eat her food. She would sit on a cowhide cushion with her legs crossed as she leaned over her steaming plate of fufu placed on top of a plastic stool. And I always had a deep affection for okra soup, so I usually paid the most attention when she indulged in a bowl of okra in the hopes that she would share her plate with me.

She usually did, and in between every bite, I would watch with utmost admiration as she would effortlessly roll a ball of pounded yam with the tips of her fingers. She would then swiftly dip her portion of pounded yam into her bowl of soup, then swallow it whole. The slime from the okra would travel down the crevasses of her hands. And every few bites, one by one, she would lick the slimy residue from the okra off her hands and fingers. I always appreciated how the scent of fufu soup lingering through the hallways led me to my mother situated in front of our television eating a plentiful bowl as she would laugh boisterously at every comedic punchline delivered in Seinfeld.

We all used to eat this way, even my father, a white man who had spent enough time in Nigeria to adapt to the ways of their culture. This was not only proven by the technique in the way he would twiddle pounded yam between his fingers but also by his weathered skin that had been beaten down by the heat of harmattan.

I distinctly remember watching one evening as my brother picked up a spoon to eat his fufu. I asked him why he chose to eat with a spoon instead of his hands and he claimed it was because he was tired of his hands getting dirty. Eventually, I would do the same—I would pick up a spoon, for what I thought was for the exact same reason. And now, at 24, I realize that I subconsciously felt the need to embody a less African version of myself in order to feel accepted by my peers. Somewhere along the way, I lost my admiration for the artistic technique it took to form a perfect ball of pounded yam with nothing but my hands. Instead, I felt the need to suppress the Nigerian within me.

Nowadays, when I am faced with a bowl of fufu, undoubtedly, when alone I dive right in with no consideration of even using utensils. If I was around others, I wouldn’t even consider using my hands, as I would feel too self-conscious of the idea that someone may view me as how the Western world brands Africans—uncivilized. And every so often now, while I’m eating on my own, I catch myself digging into my mound of pounded yam with a spoon. At what point did I start to disconnect myself from my Nigerian culture? Regretfully, at an age far too young—but I cannot solely blame myself for this.

When I was around 12 we went to a family friends’ house for dinner. My brother and I always looked forward to going, as we always loved the food they prepared for us—they never seemed to disappoint. They had a big house, fancy cars, their furniture was always up to date, and although they always served food I was familiar with eating at home it was always presented in a way that looked well-presentable, from a Western point of view. The fufu always had the pounded yam placed right in the middle of the bowl, as though it was an island surrounded by an ocean of soup. Every single one of us ate with utensils except for my mother. Whenever we went there it was almost as though my brother and I shared this telepathic sibling moment—at the time we didn’t necessarily call it this, but it was clear to the two of us that we both felt that this is what Black success looked like, and that, one day, if all went well, our family would get there too.

I do not want to diminish this family’s success, as they are in fact a great example of a successful Black family. But why is there such a specific way for a Black person to be perceived as successful? I spoke to my brother about this and asked if he had ever felt the need to change his behaviour due to being a Black man. He quickly responded, explaining that at first he felt the need to act more stereotypically “Black”—he felt he should be wearing baggy clothes and listening to nothing but rap music or hip-hop, as this was the expectation many of his peers had of him. But at some point he realized it was not benefitting him to be perceived as a stereotypical Black man.

“After a while, I don’t know where it switched, but I started becoming worried that I would be perceived as Black,” he told me. “There was a moment somewhere between 16 and probably sometime in university where I thought, ‘Wow, there are a lot of negative stereotypes about Black people.’ It feels like a skill that I’ve developed… Because I am aware of the stereotypes and I don’t want to be the stereotype. That’s my biggest fear.”

Because of these negative stereotypes about Black people, some of us have been subconsciously putting in effort to conform to the dominant culture. For me, it presented itself in an intense self-consciousness with my Black features and a lack of confidence with myself overall. I tend to doubt myself much more than I should because I’ve had many people doubt me—not because of the way I spoke or the way I did anything at all, but because of the colour of my skin and the African roots that so obviously run deeply within my ancestral lineage. And how did I manage the pressures of these cultural norms? Well, I straightened my hair and every time I spoke to a white person I made an effort to speak with a more poised and gentle demeanour, with a heightened consideration of the words I chose.

There is a deeply entrenched unconscious bias, not only in white people but in all of us, that has been instilled in the way we go about living our lives and creating our goals. We work toward an institutionalized system with a no-questions-asked mentality and just do as we are told. And somehow, colonialism has made this a way of life that people all across the globe desire to be a part of.

As a child, I spent a lot of time listening to my mother loudly speak in Igbo to our family in Nigeria. And because we lived abroad, my first introduction to them was through static-filled phone calls where we—in typical Nigerian fashion—yelled our conversation back and forth while frequently asking each other whether we could hear each other or not. Every once in a while, the static would ease and we would converse effortlessly with our family over the phone. And from the time I could comprehend a basic sentence, whether it was in Pidgin or not, I always picked up on one thing—my family, just like many other families, had a strong desire to live abroad in the hopes of something better. And although I knew exactly what they wanted, I would not truly understand the extent of their wishes until I was 22.

When I was 22, I finally went to Nigeria to visit my family. And not only was this a common topic of conversation within my family, but this feeling resonated deeply amongst quite a few people that I met; people felt like Canada and the United States—or any colonial state, for that matter—had the right idea in terms of how a country should be ran. Of course, this is how many people feel—going back to the inferiority complex, many of us in Canada feel this way too. But, while I listened to people speak so highly about these colonial states, I wondered why the conversation never took a turn toward the immeasurable negative impact colonialism and these colonial states have had on the African and North American Indigenous peoples. White supremacy has brainwashed the mind of the majority of this globe so much so to the point that even people that do not live in Canada are having the same issue that I am, this intense pressure to conform to the dominant culture. And the fact of the matter is, somehow, over the course of four to five centuries, white culture has ended up becoming the global dominant culture that many of us strive to be accepted by.

And now you may be wondering: how exactly do I plan on challenging the status quo and its expectations? Well, from an individual standpoint, this is easy. From the second the flat iron leaves the strands of my hair, my hair already has a desire to go back to its natural form. And, I mean, what is the point of suppressing something as free as my irrepressible curls? I like to think that I’m as resistant as my hair is. And if I’m being completely honest—I just can’t be bothered to try anymore.