The Story is Not Yours

The characters: us

The setting: here and there

The conundrum: the how

The resolution: there is none

Here, there are two versions of the story. 

One, imperialism in the form of neo-colonialism is different from colonization. It is not as brutal, in fact it comes with aid, and missionaries, and donations, and the borrowing of money. It comes with our perceptions of you, Ohh poor, neo-colonized nation-states, until you say, “wait, they’re cheating us. This is not enough.” So we give you just a little bit more. We say Ohh, you want to tell your own stories? Sure, but you must come here and learn in our institutions first, you must seek out our agents and be published and distributed by our big giant publishing houses, you must take on our agenda as your own, you must tilt your English so we understand and you must be grateful, whatever you do, you must be ohh soo grateful because we are trying. Can’t you see how much we are trying?

Two, imperialism is more subtle than colonization. It is not as obvious; in fact, it comes on our screens as children, it makes its home in the education we receive that holds ‘proper english’ as the only way to survive. It comes with our churches that teach God’s will as whatever the American agenda is. It comes with us knowing what snow is before we have ever laid eyes on it, writing it into our ten year old stories, black and white stories where good is anything close to white. It comes with our perceptions of you ohh so blessed dominating countries, until we realize, “Wait you’re cheating us. This is not nearly enough.” So you give us just a little bit more, a scholarship, access to a little more resources, a little more representation. And now, we know we want to tell our own stories, but you’ve brought us to tell them on your terms, to be recognized only in your english, and in your structures of story. And we must be grateful, whatever we do, ohhh so grateful, because we wouldn’t get to tell these stories to such a large audience if it wasn’t for your generosity.

And then there are the lived versions where colonization was simply a tool of imperialism. My Cucu was on her deathbed when I got accepted into my MFA program. Education is important to my family. My other grandmother who I am named after was an English teacher in colonial Kenya. To see me graduate, get a job at a bookstore, and then get a full scholarship to go study writing,*writing* of all things! And her eyes were stars when I told her, balls of tenacity and pride even as the rest of her lost most of its life. I was validation for everything she had lived through. We really are our ancestors’ dreams. I was my grandmother’s. And still at the back of my mind the question peeked: “But must I go there to learn to tell my stories better?”

To sit on the margins, is to be acutely aware that to survive you must hold contradictions. To be Black, to be Queer, to be Womxn, to be African, and to be storyteller. To know that different parts of the world won’t see different parts of you unless you demand to be seen and to know that your stories are part of the whole of you and that is your resistance. 

I will always come back to the late Wangari Maathai whose words carried me through my disillusionment with the world and my unlearning of a Saviourism complex (inherited from the white imperialist mission) that sought to change the world/ fix it. When Ms. Wangari was referring to how Kenya could move towards freedom she said, “It's the little things citizens do. That's what will make the difference. My little thing is planting trees.” 

I learned to hold my little thing as telling stories. 

Fantastical stories where everything Black that is and everything Black that could be, collide. My little thing is sacred, and my small resistance is keeping it as untouched by the imperial agenda as possible. Demanding that it consists of my (Black Internationalist) (Kenyan) (African) (Queer) (Feminist) agenda. Demanding that it be read and carried on its own terms. Demanding that the english does not tilt to be understood and that my first audience are those whose history was interrupted and then reordered by Imperialism. Everyone else, not on those margins, is an afterthought. The seeming contradiction here is that the fact that my work is highly specific does not mean it is not and cannot be universal.

Imperialism says, only white stories are relevant to everyone. Black, Brown, and Indigenous stories can only be highly specific and even this is presented as an act of generosity. Imperialism says, “Ohh, we mustn’t touch their stories because they called us out on rewriting them.” The subtle fuckery is actually quite genius when you think about it. In walks the villain.

I currently teach a Creative writing class to highschoolers at a boarding school and I often show my students this interview by Kei Miller where the interviewer asks him about writing as a Caribbean in the UK and Miller beautifully articulates this concept of his work as a conversation he is having with his people first, but also bystanders (anyone who is not from the Caribbean) are allowed to overhear. He says about British students for example, “There is beauty in realizing that you are not the center of the work and there is a reason for that and there is growth that comes from understanding the reason why you are not being centered.” Then he goes on to add the concept of stories allowing you to migrate to a different center. The idea that stories allow us to inhabit different centers from the immediate one we are most intimately familiar with is important because decentering the imperialist agenda starts with migrating into other centers and living in and with them for as long as we are alive. This is the work of small resistances. 

My version of the story: There is magic in Black skin, there is soft love in Queer homes, there are shared resources in African civilizations where Queendoms are horizontal instead of hierarchical. Tunaongea na kila lugha na tunaelewana. Or sometimes we don’t understand each other and that’s okay. Money is fake. Children are for the community, and there are fireside stories of spirits and lovers and mountains and mermaids and our history is long and present and living.

I no longer believe my stories will change the world (ohh wonder of wonders). I do think my stories allow for those I love deeply, those on the margins, to feel seen. And that is a small resistance, my little thing.