Colonization is the process of taking over land that was previously home to another race. Colonists came to the land and began to claim it as their own, eventually exterminating or displacing all of the people who lived there before them. Colonies are typically established by people who have migrated to a new area, often to escape war and other violence.
In this episode, Dr. Norissa and dr. Bukky, the podcast hosts, are joined by Joseph Aina, who was born in 1944 in Nigeria. Aina is a professor at Babcock University. He was also a Western Connecticut State University professor from 1999 to 2010.
Joseph Aina shares some powerful information about himself, the actual process of colonization, how race started in Nigeria, and the time when missionaries arrived in Nigeria. Aina also further talks about why white people came to Nigeria, changes caused by colonization, Yoruba religion Vs Christianity on negative behaviors, and how white supremacy impacted Nigerian communities.
Timestamps
[01:44] About Joseph Aina
[04:00] The actual process of colonization
[11:53] How race started in Nigeria
[13:52] The time when missionaries arrived in Nigeria
[16:32] Why white people came to Nigeria
[24:41] Changes caused by colonization
[28:36] Yoruba religion VS Christianity on negative behaviors
[31:05] How white supremacy impacted Nigerian communities
Notable Quotes
(19:24) “Everything about white people was not bad.”
(23:19) “People were much more faithful to themselves and to the community before christianity.”
(26:49) “There were no prisons before the white man arrived.”
(32:27) “you hardly see young children today holding on to the language of their forefathers. They would rather speak english.”
(33:05) “They have made us believe that we couldn’t do anything that is good. If it’s good, it’s from somewhere else.”
(33:31) “The English language is like a fast food, the food might taste good but it’s not nutritious than African languages.”
(36:00) “Colonizers didn’t take us out of our country, but they took us out of ourselves.”
(38:29) “We have to think back in order to look forward to know what needs to be healed.”
Relevant Links
The Book by Malidoma Patrice Some: Of Water and Spirit
Connect with our guests
Joseph Aina
Linked In: linkedin.com/in/joseph-aina-91142950
Radical Remembering Podcast
Website: https://radicalremembering.com/
Connect with Dr. Norissa
Connect with Dr. Bukky
If you love to listen to podcasts and get motivated by the stories shared by other people, this is something for you. The Radical Remembering Podcast is designed to help you remember who you are beyond the superficial. Each episode provides a deeper perspective on liberation, healing, and transformation. Thank you for listening to the Radical Remembering podcast! Listen to our next podcast and tell a friend about us.
TRANSCIPT
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 00:01
Welcome to Radical Remembering with psychologist
Dr. Norissa Williams: 00:04
Dr. Norissa
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 00:05
And Dr. Bukky
Dr. Norissa Williams: 00:06
This is a weekly conversation where we explore the ways we've internalized oppression and consider what it really means to be liberated.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 00:12
Each episode will leave you with intimate knowledge of the liberation process, sprinkle a little healing magic, and leave you with wisdom for your journey. Welcome back you all to radical remembering. I am so excited about today's conversation with you all, because we have a special guest speaker, technically my uncle, but I call him daddy because he is part of the people who raised me. And I was just saying to Norissa earlier how part of who I am, is largely related to the influence that he has had on my life, my own father's life. In a second, I will let him introduce himself. But part of what I wanted you all to know is that, as somebody who's Nigerian raised and born, there's so much history I have access to. And one of the things that I've been coming to, as I've been in my liberation journey is how much I have forgotten and not known because of colonization. Right? To have such access to rich history and to not know, to not be informed and so when you have sages like my Daddy here, who can literally tell you stories about being in Nigeria, experiencing colonization, it is a gift. And by the way, our topic today is exploring colonization in Nigeria. So Daddy, will you go ahead and introduce yourself to our audience here?
Joseph: 01:43
Okay, thank you. My name is Joseph Aina. And that Joseph is also a colonized name, that’s not my regular name, I got that name when I got baptized into Christianity. My real name that they gave to me when I was born was Oyeniyi, Oyeniyi means title has honor. I was born when my grandfather was made a chief in the town. So in order to recognize that achievement, they named me Oyeniyi, that title that my grandfather obtained had honor. So, my birth was to honor his title. He was made the head of a whole area of the town and I was born about the same time, so they call me Oyeniyi. My surname is Aina. As you can see, it's A-I-N-A, but actually, the name was made into a Christian name, because it is actually Aaynna, double A, Y, double N, A but we shortened it to Aina, that's part of the work of the white people when they came, because they don't want to pronounce long names. So, they rather shorten your name to the one they can pronounce. I was born in 1944, so I've been in America for a few years but I've been on this earth since 1944. I'm 78 years old now and I've experienced a lot of things in my lifetime, when I was young and when I started growing up to where I am now.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 03:30
So, much of this history is what we want to be able to explore with our audience
Joseph: 03:38
All right, I will do the best I can, so that’s my exploration.
Dr. Norissa Williams: 03:43
So, that brings us nicely to the first question, really, I mean, it's a broad question and I'd like you to start wherever you feel comfortable starting, but given your lived experience, what did you witness with respect to the actual process of how they colonized?
Joseph: 04:01
Okay, I’ll give you a few examples of what colonization did to us. Well, I'll give you one, the change of name and then they were different. The white people that came, they came from England and they were different from all of us. And they thought that we didn't know much, we didn't know anything according to them, but we did know, we knew a lot at the time. First thing they did was to give us a language, English language, because they came from England, they’re English people. So, we have to communicate with them in English. So it took some time for the one before us because they have to put them in school and teach them how to speak English. In order to help understand English, when you are in school, which is from like 8 o'clock in the morning to about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the only language you can speak is English, you can’t speak your own dialect or your own language. So, they call our language vernacular and they tell us you cannot speak vernacular when you are in school, whether you know how to speak English or not, you have to try and speak English, that's part of the colonization. They took our language from us, because Nigeria has several ethnic groups and there are several dialects that they speak in Nigeria, so they join all of us together. We have Hausa, we have Fulani, we have Yoruba, we have Igbo, we have Ikwerre and so many names within Nigeria. Their language is different from the Yoruba language, some of them are unable to speak English. And then there’s something they also did, they gave us something they called ‘broken English,’ which means it's not a complete English language but you have pieces of English and the vernacular, your own language, you mix it together. This way they can understand you when you talk, when you have not been to school and they gave us a religion, that they brought from their own country. And they ask us to give up our own religion, the religion that we had believed in an almighty God, in my language, that God is called, ‘Oludumare’, that is ‘’Ruler of the Universe,’ then we also call Him ‘Olorun,’ which in English translates to God. But we know that this God not cannot be accessed by a human being, you need an intermediary, between you and that God. So in Yoruba, we have Ifa, IFA, and the real name for Ifa is ‘Orunmila,’ the interpretation in English is like, it's only heaven knows who we survive, Orunmila. And we know Orunmila through the deity that you represent, which is Ifa, IFA. So, Orunmila, it was supposed to represent an intermediary between us and Oludumare, Oludumare is the God of all, nobody can see him. But only certain individuals like Orunmila can see him, they will go and get information from him or bring it to us and explain this is what God wants us to do. We didn’t have Bible but the Oyibo brought Bible, everything that we did was in the head, so we kept memory of it. So, those who want to be in that particular area, we learn the way you can talk to God through Ifa, which is the same thing as Orunmila. The experience that we had, I remember my father telling me that they have, I don’t even remember the name that they call them, but like their leaders, they are set by the governor from Lagos. And they have to be put in different places around the country, we didn’t become a country until 1914, 1914 was when Nigeria became one country, there were different ethnic groups and they have different areas that they lived in. And our own place is Yoruba, that’s Western part of Nigeria and we have Eastern part of Nigeria which are occupied by Igbos and other people, there are Central part that are occupied by Yoruba and some other group, Northern part, that is Hausa and Fulani, that's Nigeria. But most of the countries in Africa are like that, they have different languages and they just put them together so that it can help them to manage what they want to manage. I remember my dad telling me that when the people that is in charge of a particular area want to travel, the people from one town where they stay, we carried them from that time on a hassock, it’s something they build, it will have a chair in it. And then they have four people who will carry that chair with a stick on one side and another stick, two people in the front, two in the back. They can’t walk because they are the masters. So, they carry them from one town to the other. My father was part of those who take over in Otun and there are three others that we join him to carry that individual, that white man from one town to the next town, another group will catch them in the other place and that's how they travelled before vehicles were available. When vehicles, bicycles and motorcycles came, they were relived of those activities. I remember my father telling me also, when we go to the farm, when his yam or whatever he is producing is bigger than usual, he will say, this one is a white man's yam, they say ‘isu oyibo lele’, you got those things, right? When you were young, it was Oyibo that has the best things, if it is not good, then it is the African people that have it. Well, it wasn't like that before they came according to my dad, everybody respected themselves but the people just came and colonized us. We will say the British were better than the Spanish and the Portuguese that first came to Africa because what they came to do was to collect slaves and transport slaves to America or some other places where they needed slaves. The British didn’t carry slaves from Nigeria. They just came to colonize Nigeria, to stay with Nigeria and they were also helpful in stopping the slave trade. But it was about 400 years, I think they were collecting people to carry them to a place where they want to use them, well I don’t know. What other questions do you have? Was that helpful?
Dr. Norissa Williams: 11:25
So yes, Bukky, do you have a?
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 11:30
So, many things and part of the piece we were talking about earlier, daddy, we were just like exploring, I was talking about how like, grew up in in Nigeria and just this idea of race. And this piece around like, where did this idea of us, like, devaluing each other racially even though we were like, similar, but when to hear you even talk about this, like issue in Igbo?
Joseph: 11:52
Yes, anything that is good, even though you have been planting those things they came, your grandfather, your father was planting those seeds and they were coming out about the same way that you see them but now you say because of the mentality that everything that is white or comes from white people is better than the one that comes from black people, that's what they put into our heads.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 12:22
Right. But it's just this introduction, I was talking about this introduction of like white supremacy. And just like literally, just you hearing this and just like literal, like implantation of that, I'm just like, fascinated as you were like telling the story, you know?
Dr. Norissa Williams: 12:39
What I'm thinking about the fact is that it's so recent, right? So, one, we tend to think of all of this as, it was aeons ago, it was hundreds of years ago, we don't think that they’re, exactly, that people are living who witnessed it still. And then the other part of that I was thinking is that I don't know that we're conscious, you know, in America about the you know, we think of the people who were taken away and think of them as traumatized in that way. I don't know that we are as conscious of what was continuing to happen on the continent. So, I appreciate all that you've had to share. One thing that I'm wondering is like, so what would you say since you've gotten the chance to like witness it? What would you say were some of the consequences of, you know, those people like you, your community, like witnessing these kinds of things?
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 13:33
And daddy before you answer that question, can you give us, if you have it, like one of the things you said you have ... when you were born, the missionaries had already been in Nigeria, they had already been in Ekiti?
Joseph: 13:45
Yes.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 13:47
Do you have any, in terms of time of when they arrived in Ekiti?
Joseph: 13:53
The first set of people that came to Nigeria, when we studied history in school, were people that were trading, they came to trade. And for example, we have the guy called Vasco de Gama. I don't think it's British, I think his name doesn’t sound British, he is probably Portuguese or Spanish, those areas that they came from. We had a river in Nigeria, it is called River Niger, that river starts from another country but most part of it is in Nigeria. There’s a mountain or a hill called Fouta Djallon, I think is located in either the Northern part of Nigeria, not inside Nigeria, it was outside of Nigeria, Fouta Djallon Hills, that's the origin of River Niger, that's where it came from. But when he left that part, I think it’s probably Northern part of Burkina Faso, which is east of Nigeria. They said they came to discover the rivers in Africa. So, they found the Niger River, they call it Niger river, but it wasn't called River Niger at the time, when it was founded, it was a means of transport for them because there was no transport in those days. So, they have boats that they will build and the boat will bring them. Unfortunately, I heard that the man died in one of the trips that he had, Vasco de Gama, then other people followed him. The river is a big river, so they came through and then it entered into Nigeria but they call it River Niger, the Nigerian River or River Niger and it ends in the Atlantic Ocean by travelling through part of Nigeria to the Eastern part and it enters into the Atlantic Ocean in that place. There’s another one, it’s called River Benue. It came from the opposite side, like Cameroon area and then it came to Nigeria and both of them are now united at a particular place. River Benue and River Niger became one river before they enter into the Atlantic Ocean or the Eastern coast of Nigeria,
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 16:25
Daddy, are you showing how that as a way of trying to help us understand how people access and how they arrived in Nigeria?
Joseph: 16:32
Yes, the first set of white people that came, they were traders. They didn't come to capture people and send them, they just came to look at the way the places are and how they can benefit from the things that are available in those parts of the world at the time. There was no Nigeria at the time. These countries were not there. They were just existing human beings in the areas that they found, it wasn't called Nigeria, that was a race that they did, the Germans, the Spanish people, the Portuguese and the English, at a place down South of South of Africa. And then they had to do a race to get there, so that they can divide the land among themselves. So, the all of Africa was divided among the colonizers, the Europeans, the English is one of them, I mean, England is one of them, Portugal, Spain and Germany. So, all the countries in Africa, they were divided among those European countries. So Nigeria was given to the British, German took some part, Spanish people took some part, Portuguese people took some part. Eventually we start to become independent, we try to get independence from these countries that are leading us, for example, Nigeria became independent of the British in 1960. In 1960, I was about 14, 15 years old at that time, that's when we got independence from England. Before that time, England will be the one that will be governor of all the country and they divided us into three places, east and west and north, three places and they put one of them as a governor of each of those areas, that they have other food that they brought from the country that they will be in charge of ruling the place. We had our own ‘Obas,’ we had our own leaders before they came, we have ..., who are in charge of their towns and various things that they will manage for the people and we gave respect to them. When they came, all of these things stopped. So, they became the leaders, the Oba has no place again. However, everything about them is not bad and everything about them is not good because before they came, there were a lot of things we were doing. For example, we didn't believe that a woman can carry more than one child in the womb. So, if a woman was carrying twins, when they are born, they will kill one automatically, they thought that was not correct. God can only give you one child at a time. So, some people will have three and they will kill two of them. Well, eventually one of the women that came from England, her name was ... she said there is no reason why a woman cannot carry more than one child inside her womb. So, there's no need to kill them, they were killing them. Bukky, you know Uncle Taye, you know him? He was a twin, they were two boys, kill one of them. His mother was a twin, they killed one of them. So, they don't let them stay, eventually, it’s one good thing that we got and we can say we've got from the colonizers that there's nothing wrong with having more than one child in the womb but it took some time. Another good thing that we have before they came was that stealing was not as rampant, cheating was not as rampant because it's not even the colonizer that did this, it’s the people that brought religion, people that brought religion to us told us that if you have been a bad person all your life and you change from being bad to being good, a few days before you die, you're going to go to heaven, that was what they were teaching us when they brought the religion to us. Whereas our own religion tells you that you cannot do anything that is bad to another person. There’s a god that we call thunder, god of thunder, you know, the thunder that strikes when it's raining, that's very strong god and people believed in him.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 21:36
Is that Sango?
Joseph: 21:37
Sango, yes, that's Sango in Yoruba, yes, they call it different names in other places but you call it Sango. Sango is a God that when you find somebody out through the thunder that he brings, if somebody has done something wrong, when the rain starts to gather, they will confess what they have done and ask for forgiveness. For if not, the rain comes with thunder and the thunder will strike them out, put them outside, in the front of the house and then everybody will know that they have done something bad, whether it is right or not we don't know, whether it's correct or not correct. Before they brought Christianity, they were more faithful to themselves and to others than when they brought Christianity. The reason is that Christianity teaches that if you are being bad, if you have a few days to live and you change, you said God saved me, they said you will be saved. The only things that people don't know when they’re going to die, that's the only saving grace that will still keep people from doing bad things. Before the Oyibo came, everybody was nice to each other, although there were people that will do bad things and these gods will take care of them like Sango, so people will not do bad things. But now that we have Christianity, we have Muslim, we have other Traditional religions or other religions that are not one that are so strong that we fetch you out if you do something wrong.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 23:11
I mean, the piece that like is just really poignant that I've never thought about until you just describe is this thing you said is like, people are much more faithful to themselves and to their community before Christianity because then Christianity becomes about this service to this God.
Joseph: 23:30
It’s so weird and we don't know where he is.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 23.33
...versus like the morale and the clarity around like the people who you're with, you know? So that piece is just really fascinating. Daddy, one of the questions that Nerissa asked you earlier that I want you to go back to is what changes like given colonization and I think you already kind of answered this around like, the changes that you noticed, in terms of like, for example like crime, in some ways crime going up, right? If you think about that question really thoughtfully around like, are there any other things that like, remarkable changes as I was asking earlier though? If the colonizer had already been there before daddy was born.
Joseph: 24:14
They were there before I was born.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 23:32
That’s right, so it's harder for him to notice. He doesn't have a context of saying before, let’s ask this daddy, did your father or your family, when they pass down history to you, did they tell you about ways that the village, our people essentially became different because as a result of, like what were changes that happened because of colonization?
Joseph: 24:41
All right, as I said earlier, we live in communities, villages or big towns. The towns are not so big, so the villages are managed by, we call them ‘Kabi o osi’ or the Oba or chief, it is not our language, the Oyibo people brought chief to us. So, we call them Oba or ‘Kabi o osi,’ Oba is the head of a particular unit, let's say, Virginia, there are different towns within Virginia and so like a local government area, the Oba is in charge. It does all the sayings that the government will do, we didn’t have a government that is a general government or state government in those days, the government was the ‘Kabi o osi’, not that the ‘Kabi o osi’ was very good but they also have things that can keep them in check. But all they do is make sure that there is peace in the town. But when we got colonized, the powers of those ‘Kabi o osi’ were reduced and they could not make regulations as they were doing before. So, they have to wait for somebody from somewhere else to regulate what they're going to do and sometimes when they were doing things that they don't like, that the Oyibo people don’t like, they will exile them, they send them out of their town and they might go there, they might die where they have sent them. But because they have become colonized and therefore, they will have the power that was with them before, was no more there. Now after we've got independent, they start to pull these things back but it's not as it used to be, they still have the Obas in their towns and villages and we have chiefs that will be in charge of a particular area of a town. We have head of units, we call them Eleri ebi or Oleri ebi, head of a family group. And from time to time, this Oleri ebi will go and meet so that they can iron things out. We didn't have prison before the white man came, so nobody goes to prison. The gods were the ones that were giving judgement, when you do something wrong, you will know that you have done something wrong. And as I said, if the rain starts to gather, the God of Thunder is the one that brings rain and we call him Sango. So, if it starts to rain and you have done something bad to somebody, you go and confess right away, ask for forgiveness from that person. If that person forgives you, you will not get your punishment from thunder or the Sango because you have confessed what you did. That's something that we didn’t oppose when they talk about confession when you have done something wrong, but the only part that we do not like in the Christian thing, is the fact that they tell you, you can be as bad as you are but if you know you're getting sick or you're likely to die, you start to confess what you have done. But it is different from when we used to worship our own gods that we know, even though He is a good God but He does not condone bad things, He will punish the individual at the time that He thinks.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 28:11
So, with Yoruba religion, the expectation was around real time repair whereas with Christianity, it's like there's a piece around, it was part of their like people's bristle was that, there was more of an acceptance of like negative behaviour that just kind of got absolved because you know Christ?
Joseph: 28:37
Yeah and the fact that Christ is not coming right away but you still don't know when He is coming, that's part of the thing they used to hold us. For some people, what is going on now in Nigeria is unbelievable because people are stealing money, people are killing people, even though we are mostly Christians and Muslims, we believe in a God that forgive. But because of the way these gods were transferred to us, who are taught to us, it was if you have been doing something bad before, if you change shortly before Christ comes...comes, then you will be okay.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 29:21
The other thing daddy though is, and another person you’re also noticing this, one of the things that I'm really respecting that I didn't realize is that in the Yoruba religion, it really required this repair with the person you had like haunt, you had to go confess to the person that you had sinned. If you’re saying Sango would like, there will be no consequences from the God if you repaired it with the person. Whereas in some ways, Christian religion didn't record, like you repair it with God but it takes out the person that you actually harmed out of there, like there's no requirements, right? So maybe like, you know, I think part of like most Christians would interpret that, I’m like there's an encouragement but there's no requirement that you have to do that repair with the person who has been harmed. It's about requesting forgiveness from this being, do you see what I’m saying so I never realized that that is a rob, the ways in which we were building relationships and maintaining relationships with one another.
Dr. Norissa Williams: 30:23
And you know, that's what I was asking for. So, I wasn't asking for like the, you know, what he witnessed? Meaning, what you witnessed, the impact on the individual and how they conceived of themselves with respect. So, if the yam was said, that's for the white man, so what did that do to the individual who had to consider like, well, they're better than so they get more, as well, as you know, I can't speak my language in school. My language is vernacular, right? And so, how did that impact how people experienced themselves and community because this is a good point that you're making, too, because this is impacting communities.
Joseph: 31:04
It is. It is something that we have because the language in Nigeria today is English, you can’t use your language in government, you have to use English, you have to write things that you want done in English, that's part of the effect of colonization. Plus, they put different groups of people together, so the only way they can communicate among themselves is to use this foreign language that they have brought to us. When you are in school, they’re teaching you to speak English and if you speak your language in school, they give you punishment and that's what has happened to us today. Our children that are here, people that come here and have children from Nigeria, they teach their children how to speak English, instead of speaking their own dialect or their own language. No, because they don’t encourage us to speak that language. There was a governor we had about 20 years ago, he tried to change some of those things that instead of using English in school, that was to should start to use Yoruba, and then in offices, government offices, you will speak Yoruba because you are in the Yoruba area and if you are in an Igbo place, you speak your language there. But eventually that one died too because nobody supported it. So, you hardly see young children today holding on to the language of their forefathers. No, they will rather speak English. If I'm speaking my language now, Bukky will be the only one that will understand the speech means but that's part of what they did to us. They took our religion from us, they took our language from us and then when we have things that are good on our farms, we say, this is not our own, this is the Oyibo one, this is the English one, that's why it is so good. They made us believe that we couldn’t do anything that is good, if it's good, it’s from somewhere.
Dr. Norissa Williams: 33:11
All of that is so rich. I'm reading ‘Of Water and the Spirit’ by Malidoma Patrice Some and he was speaking about language and he's Burkina Faso born. And when he came to the States, he wanted to write this book and he said it was so hard because he's like, the English language is like a fast-food language. Right? So, you know, like fast food is not nutritious, it might taste good. It might fill you up but you know, it's not the same and doesn't have the nuances and the richness of other languages, African languages. And so hearing what you're saying and thinking in the context of Some, it's just you know, separation from yourself because language is not just what we speak. There's so much inherent in language that is related to identity, sense of self and the ability to communicate, you know? Even here, like when people are speaking other languages, like when you really want to communicate, like even emotions and deeper level things, people really revert to that language as opposed to English language because it's lacking.
Joseph: 23:32
That’s true.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 34:22
But the thing I like is this, like I'm sitting here listening to this because that daddy, I think this rule is still existed in schools now because I remember being punished as a kid in Nigeria for speaking Yoruba in school and I remember my mom being adamant about like, you only speak English at school and not Yoruba. You know, but the piece that's really interesting right now is you know, I talk about the Yoruba of a 12-year-old, right? I remember being, when Jaye was born, wanting to be intentional about speaking Yoruba to Jaye but realizing that, I don't think emotionally in Yoruba and so, like I have functional Yoruba. And so, this is sort of the different things that sort of happened when we talk about the separation from oneself, that then you start to make like trades, right to the point that, like to daddy’s point, like all the grandkids, none of them, the lucky ones might be able to understand some Yoruba, but none of them can actually speak. So, it's like this systematic way that like, our next generation in our family, the kids here, at least the ones in the states will actually not be able to speak Yoruba.
Joseph: 35:51
They won’t and that's the inheritance from slavery, colonization is the same as slavery. They came to colonize us; they didn’t take us out of the country but they took us out of ourselves because we couldn't be ourselves anymore. We can’t speak our language; our children will not speak our language because they have been taught to speak only English when they are in school. And that's what I was saying when one Governor said they should be taking Yoruba in the school and be teaching them Yoruba but that person died and that idea is gone.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 36:30
I don't think our people would not because of the like, colonization of the mind. All people would not endorse and agree with that.
Dr. Norissa Williams: 36:40
I was going to name that too, right? So, when you were speaking and this is not at all to characterize your mother in any way, but like when you were saying like how even your mother enforced like no, you don't speak English or whatever. Thinking of Frantz Fanon, Black Psychiatrist, who spoke about auto oppression and defines it as when the oppressor without becomes the oppressor within, right? So, no longer do we need British rule and it to replicate the oppression racialization and then this racial hierarchy even in a place where blackness dominates, now the psych, you know what I mean? Then it continues to replicate and replicate and the only way back is with an intentional, like you always say and how the next generation won't be able to speak it. Right? So, the only way back is with intentionality and making sure like that we have these schools and it's to their praise but like a lot of, when I used to teach at Queens College, it was a very Asian community. And to their praise, like they were Saturday school and evening school where they were learning the language, right? And you know, Jewish traditions also have that, where they’re learning the language and the culture and we definitely, we need to do that to be able to reclaim, that's part of our liberation.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 37, we are so out of time and I certainly know I have a session I got started in a few minutes. But daddy, thank you so much for bringing just incredible amounts of wisdom for us, incredible amounts of the history to us and for us. So, thank you so much for your time and just for like your genius, we so appreciate you and appreciate all of your knowledge. Norrisa, what do you want to say?
Dr. Norissa Williams: 38:21
No, I just want to thank you also, I mean for enriching, for taking us in a new direction as we consider, like liberation, because we have to think back, it’s like Sankofa, we have to think back in order to look forward, to know what needs to be healed and different things like that and you shared a perspective that we couldn't. So, thank you so much and it was an honor to meet you.
Joseph: 38:40
Nice to meet you. You said you’re in NYU?
Dr. Norissa Williams: 38:42
I adjunct there, but I'm no longer full time there.
Joseph: 38:46
Okay, I did my PhD in NYU. I finished in 1983, but we graduated in May of 1984. I went through New York, there are three sets of universities in New York. They call them the New York systems. There is a Private University of New York, there is a City University of New York and there’s State University of New York, and I went to three of them.
Dr. Norissa Williams: 39:16
Nice. I taught at three of them. I taught at CUNY, SUNY and NYU, private. So thanks so much.
Joseph: 39:24
All right. Thank you.
Dr. Norissa Williams: 39:26
Bye bye.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 39:26
Thank you, daddy. Thanks for listening. If you loved what we've had to say, please subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.
Dr. Norissa Williams: 39:35
I’m Dr. Norissa and you can find me on IG at Dr. Norissa Williams.
Dr. Bukky Kolawale: 39:39
And I'm Dr. Bukky, you can find me on IG at the official Dr. Bukky.
Dr. Norissa Williams: 39:43
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