Watching people who should know better cling to a fantasy of whiteness as if it were oxygen, even when it's killing their dignity, their memory, and lineage

A particular sorrow moves through many communities today — a sorrow shaped not by sudden tragedy but by slow erosion. It is the sorrow of watching people who should know better cling to a fantasy of whiteness as if it were oxygen, even as it strips away dignity, memory, and lineage. This grief does not shout. It settles quietly, like dust on an abandoned altar, marking the places where identity once stood firm.

Across cities and continents, a strange transformation unfolds. Young people, especially those under thirty, often treat their heritage as an inconvenience rather than an inheritance. Languages carried across centuries are dismissed with a shrug. Cultural memory is traded for borrowed accents. A person who left home only two years ago may insist they can no longer speak the language of their childhood, while elders who left half a century earlier still hold it with ease. The speed of forgetting is startling — not because memory is fragile, but because the desire to forget has become so strong.

Scenes like this play out in everyday life. A newly arrived migrant, still uncertain of legal status, still shaped by the cadence of colonial classrooms, may declare themselves “English” with a confidence that borders on desperation. The declaration is not a claim of belonging but a shield against vulnerability. When such a person labels another as “Nigerian” — not as heritage but as hierarchy — the gesture reveals a deeper confusion. It is not superiority speaking. It is fear wearing the mask of certainty.

This pattern is not unique to one community or one generation. It is the long echo of colonial aftershock. When a society teaches people that their origins are burdens, that their accents are liabilities, that their histories are embarrassing footnotes, many begin to shed parts of themselves in order to survive. Assimilation becomes armour. Distance from one’s own culture becomes a strategy. But strategies built on fear rarely lead to wholeness.

There is a scientific dimension to this story as well. Trauma does not vanish when the event ends. It leaves marks — psychological, cultural, and sometimes epigenetic. Generations shaped by colonisation, displacement, and racial hierarchy often inherit stress responses that once served as protection. These responses can manifest as identity fragmentation, linguistic shame, or the instinct to seek safety through proximity to dominant cultures. These behaviours are not moral failures. They are survival codes written into the nervous system.

Yet even with this understanding, the grief remains. Something precious is being lost — not because it lacks value, but because it has been taught to doubt its own worth. Languages that once carried cosmologies are fading. Names that once held ancestral power are softened or abandoned. Histories that once anchored communities are treated as optional extras in a world obsessed with reinvention.

And still, the story is not one of defeat. Cultures do not disappear because some forget; they disappear only when all forget. As long as even one person remembers — one storyteller, one keeper of names, one guardian of language — the lineage remains alive. History shows that identity can be revived with astonishing force. Young people who once ran from their roots often return with a hunger that surprises even them. Languages can be reclaimed. Traditions can be reborn. Pride can be rediscovered.

The moment calls not for despair but for clarity. Memory must be held. Language must be spoken. Heritage must be treated not as a relic but as a compass. The fantasy of whiteness offers no real shelter; it only delays the inevitable reckoning with self. Authenticity, once embraced, becomes a homecoming — a return to a place that was waiting all along.

This grief, then, is not the end of the story. It is the beginning of a necessary awakening. The next chapter is unwritten, and the pen is still in the hands of those willing to remember.