Step out of your damn privilege!
When you constantly live your life from a place of privilege, you never really get a chance to understand the experiences of other people, especially prejudice.
I have come to realize and understand this, having lived several experiences in my life, some of which I itemize in this piece.
As a man — So I attended this really cool high-school back in Nigeria, where we pretty much had a good mix of students from different and every background in Nigeria, you could think of, and of course, it was(is) a mixed school. Several years after graduating high-school, a few of us still keep in contact via social media, most especially WhatsApp; a conversation ensued one day and it was about sexual harassment amongst or from staff back then. Typically, I was shocked, like some real ass shock, but in retrospect, I wonder why I was — I mean, it’s a Nigerian school owned by Nigerians and operated in Nigeria.
So stories started to fly about a certain teacher who harassed this former classmate of mine, and then another female classmate (within our WhatsApp group) kind of corroborated same story by sharing her own experience with said “male” teacher, in the midst of the shock from some of us (mostly guys), another former female student decided to use the opportunity to share another story, involving yet another male member of staff (someone who was known as a really funny and jovial individual — now married). To further burst my bubble, this lady also claimed that the harassment continued online, shortly after we graduated high-school in 2014, mind you, many of us were barely teenagers, I turn 24 in a week from today and we are in the year 2021, so think back 7 years ago.
Now, the point of this sad story, in retrospect, is the fact that I was so shocked and almost did not believe these ladies upon hearing their stories for the first time, because “no nah, these men were highly placed staff members, and the other guy was funny and loved by us all” — all bullshit!
I almost shoved their experiences aside, because I didn’t think it was possible for stuff like that to happen to anyone; why? maybe because I am a guy who has not really experienced sexual harassment, or maybe because none of my experiences, living as a man, has allowed me the opportunity to see that women and girls do actually go through shit from “my kind”.
As a kid, who grew up in a rather comfortable family/environment — from my previous story, you should kinda have an idea of my life, as far as “comfortability” goes. I mean, the Akanji family isn’t “wealthy”, but I like to think we are “well-to-do”. I have five siblings, and my family moved to Warri, Delta state just before I was born, a few years after I was born, we moved into a gated community, owned and operated by the company my dad was working for at the time — an oil firm. This community — an estate had all the things you would need to live a decent life in Warri; we had several churches, a big central mosque, a full on hospital, a huge gymnasium (barely had equipments, except one or two badminton courts), a football pitch, several basketball courts, two lawn tennis courts, a squash court, a clubhouse and events hall, a super market, a pool house, several housing units, a daycare, a nursery, and a primary school, probably the only thing missing was a Cinema. Well, you get the point, we had pretty much the essentials, oh! before I forget, when it came to power, we had more than enough (by the Nigerian standard sha o), so let me gist you, we had our own dedicated power system and a backup generator for the entire community (this estate had over 300 housing units, if I am being generous), and then after a while, our power was connected directly to the gas refinery in Warri; if you do not know what this means, it means that we had almost uninterrupted power supply; why? only because the refineries never can go out of power except its been decommissioned.
Enough of that, I outlined some of that just so you could have an inkling into what I grew up in, not opulence, not wealth, not stinking riches, but “comfortability”; something over 75% of Nigerians lacked then, and are still lacking and probably would still lack for a few more years, but here’s where I realized my privilege; growing up in a gated and secured estate, I did not really realize how dangerous the city really was, I knew there was some fighting between the Itsekiri and the Urhobo youths, but I did not understand the gravity of the situation, until one day where we were on our way back home at night with some of my siblings and mum, and we had to make a sharp u-turn, because there was an active robbery right in front of us, or was it the day that our school bus couldn’t take kids home because earlier that morning, member of a certain community close to my school found slippers, hairs, clothes and several other items of people who were believed to have been missing, under a popular bridge — a route we all took to school everyday. In all of these, I still really didn’t feel the huge insecurity that loomed over the city of Warri, because I would still go back to the comfort of my home at night, my home that was situated inside of an estate, that had security and we also had (constant?) light.
It started to dawn on me little by little anyway, my neighbor got attacked at night, and got his head smashed to death, by his son(story for another day). That one incident made me realize, we really are not shielded from every other thing happening out there, it’s still Nigeria. No matter how privileged you think you are, you’re susceptible to getting harmed by the very same thing that affects the underprivileged; it’s probably only a matter of time
…oh by the way, as a man, I have also been assaulted (after high-school)
Privilege is alive and well, when you realize yours, step out of it and do something, become an ally for the people on the other side of the divide, because that thing that affects them, would definitely come for you one day.
From today, when people tell you stuff, when they open their hearts to you, most particularly from a place of pain or concern, don’t try to discredit their experiences only because you can not relate, its theirs and its their truth, listen! listen! listen!, do not judge, before you take any step, realize yours, step out of it and try to see things from where they stand.
