Oh! America, my America, Indeed, there’s no perfect world – Pamela Eboh

Growing up as a kid at Ekulu Primary School, GRA, Enugu, I used to see the United States of America, USA, as a perfect society, nation. A society filled with milk and honey, a society filled with love, no hate and no hurt.

I wanted to be like them, live, love and care like them. A country that cares for their own even in death, so much so that the nation can go to war for a member of the body hit anywhere outside the shores of the US.

Infact I envisioned myself getting married to a white American. Was this all born out of the books I read, movies I watched or their general mien?, a question I can not answer, even now. Whenever our neighbour’s sister living in the US visited, we the children living in the compound saw her as a special person, an angel of some sort, even the children of her sister celebrated her as an idol. For them, their aunt was made of gold, with all the rings adorning her fingers, the fresh skin, the sweet accent…..OMG! I have heard this saying a million times over, “There’s No Perfect World” but my stubborn spirit always opposed that stance and gave me a water tight conviction that even if other things or countries were imperfect, America was perfect.

Afterall, more than 97 percent of what we do, life style, dressing, borrowed accent, freedom, to name but a few, we copied from them. It may be that my innocent mind then, was playing a fantasy movie in my head, but, funny enough, that notion stayed strong with me up to my secondary school days at Awkunanaw Girls.

I remember having a friend that thought in the same line with me then. Fortunately, she’s now settled in US and speaking like them too…Hahahaaa.

The zenith of this perception was when my mom travelled to the US and returned with a lot of good testimonies about my dream country of America, the goodies, chocolates, clothes, toys. The one that mostly drove my childish fantasy was a medical toy set that had all the equipments used by medical practitioners.

At that point, my desire to be a musician or an air hostess faded away. I immediately started yearning to be a nurse. During our play time, i always acted as a nurse and it was so much fun checking my play mates’ temperature, heart beat, etc.

I actually learnt a lot of medical process and terminologies with the tutorials of my mom as a nurse then. Fast forward to my university days, my childhood dreams started fading away little by little, but it did not wholly dicipate.

As a matter of fact, it was the craziness that left me. I started seeing the ugly side of the country I revered so much. Infact, my eyes was opened to the evil acts of the people I viewed as angels through my regular watching of ‘ID’ channel on DSTV.

The killings, high divorce rate, (I actually thought their kind of love was ever green and permament), obsession for things that are ordinarily and morally wrong. It really tore my heart in pieces.

Lately, the return of racism and killing of black people, especially by the white police officer punctured my age long impression of America as a nation. Don’t get me wrong, It’s not like my love for them has died, hell no, I still hold them to high esteem based on the fact that most of them still have love and conscience, but for a human being with two legs, two hands, two eyes and one head to see another human being as inferior or less human, because of the colour of his/her skin, it’s absolute madness, balderdash.

Wielding a gun doesn’t make any human being super human either. I remember my experience when I was in China years back for female world cup, I experienced this racism thing first hand. I boarded a bus with an Igbo guy based in China and while on that ride to Guangzhou computer village, about two or three Chinese men entered the bus at one bus stop, I noticed that one chose to stand because the only space left vacant was occupied by a black dude. I was inquisitive, so I asked my friend and he said, he (The Chinese guy) was avoiding sitting near a black guy, “they call us monkey”, he muttered.

That statement woke my rage and I started cursing him (The Chinese man) both in English and Igbo language. My friend told me to stay quiet and pretend I didn’t notice, saying, it’s a system they were already used to. He then went on to tell me a lot more about racism in China. Seriously, I was so pisssed. I was pissed because the guy he was avoiding was taller, finer than him and above all, well dressed than him, the Chinese dude on his part was even shirtless, hanging his T shirt on his shoulder.

I’m sure if he had a discerning spirit, he would understood my long stare at him cos our eyes met in the process. However, that was obviously one in that lane cos, at the end of the day, I got a lot of admiration, waving from them but unfortunately, they barely speak English.

I leave the rest for another day. Apologies for deviating. The senseless, wicked and tortuous way 37-year-old George Floyd, a truck driver that relocated to Minneapolis to better his life still hunts me till today, Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor, Eleanor Bumpers, Alberta Spruill, Michael Brown, etc. I never in a million years imagined that an American man could kill someone in the manner Floyd was killed, even with all the pleading, “I need water or sometbing that he mutteted before he took his last breath, “call me Momma”, indeed, I’m saddened.

I can’t seem to get my hands off from clicking the video over and over and tearing up…what manner of wickedness is that for God’s sakes?, killing a grown man, hands in pocket?, way, way, out of line, sadistic.

This killings have got to stop. We are all human for God’s sakes. Floyd’s death has opened a can of worms, reopened old wounds, exposed more of the ills suffered by black fellows in “God’s Own Country” and finally the push for police reform and retraining.

Thought it’s only in Nigeria that police brutality is experienced. In the words of one of the musicians I greatly adore his songs, Majek Fasten, I say to George Floyd’s family, I share in your pain and grief, “No more sorrow, no more weeping, no more crying, no more pain, Holy Spirit, take over the world now”. Be consoled. George has been fought for by the living, made a star in death and his death will bring to an end choke hold style of arrest, as many states have already started kicking against it. With all that has played out, I say, indeed, “There’s No Perfect Society, Nation or world.

RIP George Floyd, the big George, the landlord…