Olurotimi Osha

I wrote a piece on bullying a while back. I have since seen many similar writings on the pervasive bully culture in America.

Recently, I took issue with a Facebook feed of an image of a begoggled man hidden in layers of overflowing gowns, and a head crowned by a white turban. Nigerian women swooned over the handsome man whose covered up face they could not see in the photo.

I found something interesting regarding cheating in the Bible—which my mother had me study from cover to cover—that curiously matches my Yoruba cultural beliefs.

About 10:30 p.m. in the streets of Milan, close to Porto Genova, a metro hub, but which seemed to be the middle of nowhere to me, I realised I had taken the wrong tram. After disembarking I try to get directions from the men I see, who are elderly but can’t speak any English.

***

“Coffee or coke, Monsieur,” repeated the blonde attendant as Jide peered into her emerald green eyes. She was smiling and very pretty. Just the sight Jide liked being awakened to.

“Coffee, please.”

I recently had an interesting conversation with my Italian roommate, after I had expressed my deep gratitude to the Italian people for taking in African refugees, treating them well, and giving them a chance to start over in Italy.

Since 27 November 2017, social media and the Black diaspora have been agog with the official announcement of Prince Harry’s engagement to the stunning American divorcee, actress Meghan Markle – whose mother is an African American, who wore her Afro with pride as a young woman.

In October 2017, a retired New Jersey police chief, Frank Nucera, Jr., a 60-year-old of Bordentown Township was arrested, for hate crimes and violating the civil rights of an African American suspect under custody. A complaint cited that he demonstrated “intense racial animus” towards blacks.

Nigerians, they say, “no dey carry last” as our indigenous hierophants refused to be outdone in dispensing words of wisdom—no matter how unwise.

I lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where number 44 once lived as a student at Harvard Law School (HLS), on the night he became the first black president of the United States. The celebrations in that cold winter went on into the early hours of the morning.