PART I

When I was 16 years old I was at an all-time high in my life. Within a space of three years, I had gone from a boy playing the dusty pitch of Emakhandeni to captaining the Zimbabwean Men’s National Youth Olympic Team, Highlanders U-18, and rubbing shoulders with some Zimbabwe soccer legends in the historical Highlanders F.C first-team jersey. I was one of the brightest and hottest prospects in Zimbabwe at the time and soon I had offers to play professionally in various countries/go to the United States to continue my education and play at the independent school level with the hope of getting an athletic scholarship to complete my college degree.

At Cushing Academy, I had wonderful friends (Rafa, Reissmann, Chris Mullin, Jackson Steele, and Mark Ferguson) to name a few and teachers especially Matt Shea. Although my experience at Cushing was positive overall within days I quickly learned what it meant being a Black African man in America. I had my fellow students asking me questions such as “Do you have ice cream in Africa?” “Do you
live with lions and shit” “Do you live in a mud and grass thatched house?” or comments such as “your English is very good/How come your English is so good” and some students saying a bunch of clicks and asking if I understand. At first, I laughed it off but it became repetitive to a point where I started to see that I was different and I was made to feel that way. The ignorance showed the failure of the American education system in teaching kids the true history of different cultures and continents just as it has in teaching African American History. This should have not been a surprise because black people’s history in the Western World has been skewed since the 1500s. Starting with the climate theory that believed Africa’s heat had produced hypersexual Africans and that “intimate relations between the men and beast gave birth to monsters in Africa”. The theory puts emphasis on the fact that Africa’s hot sun transformed Africans into uncivil beasts. With this idea failing to prevail due to the realization that it could not justify the geographical distinctions in color it was changed to being hereditary through the curse theory.

The biblical defense came as some authors wrote about how Noah’s white Angelike sons should not engage in sexual activities with their wives on the Ark and upon Ham breaking such a rule Ham’s descendants were cursed to be “black and loathsome”. Blacks were portrayed as inferior and incapable of being white. Importantly the people charged with literature could have chosen to change these narratives but their adventures into Africa failed to do so for the, for example, Leo Africans a key figure in writing about African expeditions in the 1500s branded Africans as people who “leade a beastly kind of life, being utterly destitute of the use of reason, of dexterities of wit, and of all arts,” and “ behave themselves as if they had continually lived in a Forrest among wild beast”. These ideas are among a few of playwrights and books that were read in America and Europe about who the Africans were and then eventually used in the foundations of building America among key figures Richard Mathers and justifying slavery and black Africans being inferior, beastly and not capable of thinking for themselves.

400 years ago America stole fathers, sons, mothers, daughters, and most importantly they stole skilled labor from motherland Africa. They brought people to the Americas against their will, stripped them of their identity, name, and culture. To justify slavery they stripped people of their humanity and made them property. These theories and ideas have perpetuated, become a culture and they have taken new forms such as Jim Crow, redlining, voter suppression, mass incarceration, police brutality. Many of these issues prevailed and have effects today. Countless books and playwrights were written misinterpreting Black Africans as a people but forgetting that we had Mali Empire which held the richest man in the world, Songhai Empire which controlled the key trading routes in the 1600s, Great Zimbabwe which had stone walls that stunned the European explorers to a point of questioning their ability to build such organized walls thinking that it was the Greeks. Moreover, our thriving constitutional monarchies were very democratic. We had women who were queens with strong influence on their nation’s internal and foreign policies such as Queen Nandi, Queen of Sheba among others. What about the skill workers from builders, ironsmiths, and the different lnguage groups particularly The Afro-Asian, Khoisan (“click”), Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan language groups. Let me show you how the white-washing of history has had an effect on me here and how the failure to teach people the truth has failed black people in America:

PART II

As we started the season at Cushing Academy in 2012 we had a strong team and I was playing the best football of my life at the time. I was so focused on my goal of being the first one to graduate from High School in my family. My first experience of “portrayal of a black man especially of darker skin like me” was when we poised to play against Winchendon. I was excited because my name was starting to get recognition due to my performances and some D1 college coaches had come to watch me that game. As we were warming up I could feel a certain difference in the way my teammates and coach where around me. It felt off and awkward, soon we were called back to the locker room. I knew something was off and I may have been the one who was the problem because of the way I was being looked at.

Coach sat us down and talked about how someone in our team had threatened to kill our opponents during the game. He further noted how big of an offense this was as it would get the game canceled and potentially the accused player suspended from school. It was quiet for five minutes and the coach asked everyone to walk outside except for me. At that point, I knew that it had to be the one being accused of such. The coach explained how the administration had got a complaint from Winchendon about a tweet under my account threatening to kill the Winchendon players. Not kill them as in my skills on the field “but literally kill them” and they felt threatened for their lives. I was nervous, I panicked and my heart was pounding profusely because an incident like this would have shattered my dreams of pursuing a higher-level education. Was I going to fall under the curse of my family of not graduating high school? How could someone do that and for what? So many things were running through my head as I explained my innocence to the coach. At that time I did not have a twitter account, did not have a phone, and certainly, after all those months at Cushing, the administration would have known what kind of person I was. Apparently I had created a twitter account with my name and used my “African identity of savagery and threatened to kill them/hunt them like animals”. I was an easier target and with the assumptions of a black man in America, it was easy to believe that story. Despite proving my innocence I never got a word of support from the administration or I am sorry that happened we are with you after proving my innocence. Luckily enough I always had a coach and teammates who truly knew who I was and always stood by me. My coach was like a brother from another mother and my evidence clearly proved my innocence. We went on to win 4-0 against them. Trust me I put on a master class during that game scoring 2 goals. That year I had 16 goals and 14 assists winning multiple accolades.

In my senior year, we went to play against Tabor. They were a strong team but we were getting the better of them that night. I was putting on a show in midfield and I had scored two goals in that game. At one point I had dribbled past two players and made a beautiful pass to Mully and a kid turned to me and said “you African Monkey, African Nigga”. I did not think I had heard what he said up until one of my teammates said did you hear that. I was angry and confused at how someone would say that because although I was in America for almost two years and attending Cushing I had never learned about what racism was and how someone could just call me that. That year I went on to being the second-ever All American player in Cushing’s History, All Boston Scholastic MVP, NEPSAC MVP, and being part of a Cushing that would make playoffs for the first in a decade. I graduated with a 3.4 GPA, won the “Pliny A. Boyd class of 1894” prize which is given to the girl and boy who have demonstrated the best spirit of general helpfulness and has had the best citizenship record. To cap it off I had a full athletic scholarship to attend Northeastern University.

Despite all that success that day at Tabor I actually started to know that where I come from and my skin color was a problem and threat to some people just because of what they have been taught either at home/tv/books and friends. That day I learned what racism was. As much as I came from Zimbabwe saying I am focusing on achieving my goals and not worrying about anything else, I could not as I started to fear for my life. From that day it was clear to me that no how many accolades I won and how nice I was as long as I had dark skin what mattered more to them was the color of my skin because this was not the last time someone called me “nigger or African monkey” during a game.

PART III

Enter college thinking everything is going to be great because you are in a place where you have mature and knowledgeable people. I was wrong. I do not know why I had let my guard down maybe it was because as a black man you come to a point where you feel like a brick and have no feelings and you have the ability to bottle up so much pain, take so many hits and still find a way to strong? How strong can I be though because if you hit me hard enough I am gonna pop off so that I can be heard? Is that what it takes for you to listen? Back to Northeastern University.

I was excited to go to class to be a college student and I started out as an undeclared major and switched to International Business which I could have not done as a student-athlete because of a study abroad requirement. I eventually ventured into a Combined major in Political Science and International Affairs. Now in Political Science and International affairs, you get to touch on the most controversial issues in the world and get to hear different opinions which is the beauty of it. Being the only black kid in class, my problem was whenever there would be a question in regards to issues pertaining to African Americans some of my professors and peers would look at me expecting me to give answers and speak on their behalf. In general whenever there was an issue pertaining to black people I would get called on. NOTE: The black diaspora is very big, diverse, and full of different cultures. Black is more than just a color.

That was only the beginning of things though. During my freshman year, I and a couple of friends went out to a party. As we at the party dancing and enjoying ourselves I bumped into one of my closest female friends and we said our hellos and I proceeded to the dance floor. As I was dancing I noticed something off about her. She just did not seem like herself. I was asking myself if she was really drunk. It could not be that bad and I was right because she had been drugged and the guy was groping on her. I interfered acting like she was my girlfriend and I carried her back to NU. I literally carried her on my back to NU because I wanted to make sure she was safe. I get there to sign her in and I am explaining to the proctor on duty that I gotta get her upstairs. She is not feeling well. She proceeded to allow me to get her upstairs after giving me a hard time and questioning my intentions. I got upstairs and handed her to her roommate and as I was on my way out an NU police officer was there. They started questioning me and insinuating that I had other intentions with her and that I had done something to her. Now at first, I was not asked if I did it; they insinuated that I was planning or had raped her. After 30 minutes with them, they finally let me go because they had no more evidence than just a call from the residential proctor who had mentioned that I was suspicious. That day I did not get mad, I talked to my friends about it but did not tell them the whole story because at that point in our lives we knew that this was how life was here. We laughed about it because that is how we coped. I was just a brick taking in shots without feeling anything. I even experienced people weaponizing the police against me in one particular situation my freshman year. I went to a girl’s room with her and she told me that if I did not do what she wanted she would scream and call the police on me. The scary part is when she said, “You know who they would believe right?”.

Fast forward to my sophomore year when I and a couple of friends were about to go out. For some reason, that night my boi Khori and I decided to wear bandanas to match our outfits because it was the new thing in fashion and we wanted to look the part. We were all excited because it had been a long time since some of our brothers who had graduated had come to see us. As we were walking (mind you this was 6 black men walking together) to our friend’s car a police patrol car drove past us for about 100 meters. I could start to feel the fear amongst us because of the sudden silence but who could blame us based on the past experiences we all had with the police. The car backed up slowly and as it did you could feel the tension and anticipation although we were just walking and minding our own business.

The police officer stopped and asked us “What are you guys doing over here?”
We responded: “We are walking to our car so we can drive out to our destination”
Police officer: “Who are you guys and where do you come from”

The fact he asked us what we were doing over there when we were literally a few meters away from our campus was damning to me. The police officer then drove away. We were like great he didn’t give us a hard time but little did we know he was going to loop around and come back to question us again. The police car came back for the second time pulled up next to us and the police officer rolled down his window, looked at me and Khori, the two boys wearing bandanas and asked us our names. Khori got nervous as he was telling them his name. The police officer said: Oh you look like a gang member we are looking for. Are you part of a gang? So again what are you boys doing here?

We told them we were Northeastern students and we were just going about our business. They let us go but they were still around the area up until our car pulled out. This was not surprising to me because I have played on teams where coaches have had the same black players for years and still cannot tell them apart or differentiate their names although they have coached those players for years and oftentimes the players are an integral part of the teams. How?

Fast forward a year later we at the CVS on Mass Avenue. At that time we were probably the most regular customers at CVS even the people that worked there knew who we were because that is where we spent most of our husky dollars buying cologne, detergent, snacks, and other essentials. On that day as usual it was the 5 of us and we had Northeastern Soccer gear on. As we walked around the store I started noticing that we were being followed around by the security guard. Everywhere we turned or stopped to get essentials he was there sneaking his head through the corner or acting like he was just walking to observe what we’re doing. I thought I was crazy but my friends started noticing it too and we were laughing and he was getting a little embarrassed but he didn’t stop. Now I was waiting for my girlfriend to come by from her co-op and as she walked into CVS and into our row of shelves I looked into her eyes and I said: “Babe we are being followed by the guard he thinks we gonna steal but watch once I hug he’s gonna stop following us”. I had said that jokingly but guess what as soon as I hugged my girlfriend who happens to be white the security just stopped, turned back and he did not bother following us after that. Now I knew what it was like “shopping while black”. Besides, being in a mixed couple itself in Boston was hard. Countless times we got disgusting looks and one moment in particular that hurt me the most was when we were shopping at Whole Foods someone screamed at “Emmett Till” at me. Our day was ruined, I could not catch a break.

Now, this is just a list of things among many other experiences I have had as a black African man in America. Having to deal with the fear for my life while walking, running, shopping, in-class, and public spaces is something I have had to deal with while here in the U.S. I fear for my life, I fear for the life of my friends, in particular, my best friend who has called me countless times after he has been stopped by the police because he looks like a suspect who happens to have dreadlocks just like him. I am scared for the black mothers who have to live with the uncertainty of their children coming back home safely after they leave the house and the pain they have endured. My experience is different from other black people in our diaspora but we share common themes and the America that we live in today has to change.

BLACK LIVES MATTER – Student Perspectives

“I feel like there is a double standard being black in America. What I mean by that is is you feel like there is always a target on your back and its a challenge adjusting to a PWI because even teachers play into negative stereotypes about you and it makes it hard to succeed or even being on the same playing field of other students.” -Anonymous
“Being black in America is a crime even when you have no control over what you look like and who your parents are, and we’re discriminated for something we can’t control” -Kendall
“Blackness is monetized fetishized and brutalized. We were brought over as a means to a goal and we’re still seen that way. To a lot of people, we’re a commodity, meaning we’re expendable, which is why we’re so under-appreciated” – Ramya Herman 21’
“It’s pretty simple it’s just scary I feel like most black kids starting from when They’re very young that their skin color is a death sentence when It comes to somethings” -Kenzie
“Being Black in America is being told your existence isn’t good enough is various interactions throughout your life” -Anonymous
“to be black in America is to be a withering flower in bloom near a beautiful palm tree” -Anonymous