Lifestyle Insight Magazine

History. The story of how we got here. Everyone thinks they know exactly how we did. We’re all waiting to be proved right. Starting from our first appearance about 9700/4500/200000 years ago( no one seems to be able to tell) yet they seem to know how it happened. Well, regardless of the when and how of what happened; something happened, and humans have been writing their story ever since it did. Some of the things written have been proved, otheres questionable and some a mystery. Every nation has stories now. Some nations’ stories contradict each other, while others coexist perfectly.

History is a pillar of culture. Your history makes you exactly who you are. The journeys and conflicts your people went through are a part of your culture. Your history should be put on the same pedestal as the food, language, and dressing of your culture.

Within the last few months a new South African singer has gained popularity internationally. She is from South Africa and is coloured. A tik toker was doing a video on her and referred to her as black. This tik toker was then corrected by South Africans and told that she was not black and that she was coloured. The tik toker dismissed the correction and began to belittle the corrections, claiming them to be wrong.

Now due to history there are ways things and people are classified in a particular place. And it’s only respectful to someone in that culture that you refer to something or someone as what they are in their culture. Now I’m going to give an example of how different nations classify people as a result of their own cultural history; using The United States of America, South Africa and Nigeria and their racial systems as a case study.

So starting of with the United States they classify people based on race as the following.
White
Black/African American
Latino
Asian
Native American/Alaska Native
Native Hawaiian

Note: The term black American or African American is used to refer to descendants of black slaves living in America today.

Then, moving on to the South Africans, their racial classification is as follows
Black
White
Coloured
Indian/Asian.
Note: The term coloured is used to refer to those with a high level of mixed ancestry.

Nigerians are a case of their own because they don’t even have a racial system. They operate on an ethnic group system. Some of their ethnic groups include:
Hausa
Yoruba
Igbo
Edo
Fulani
Ibibio
Urhobo
Tiv
Kanuri
Ijaw

Now, if I say an American meets a coloured South African girl and an Igbo Nigerian man( full Igbo dad and Asian mom, so he has a dark Asian appearance).
That American would probably think Black in reference to the South African and Asian in reference to the Nigerian, and may even refer to them as such; which is disrespectful to both.
Referring to a coloured South African as just black is erasing entire parts of her history and is disrespectful to her. Personally, I’m not even comfortable with people of African decent being referred to as “black,” considering the fact that the word black means the absence of light or brightness.
Referring to an Igbo Nigerian as Asian is disrespectful to his history, considering the fact that in Nigeria, you go with the culture of your father, not your mother. So, though this man may look Asian he is from the Igbo culture in Nigeria.

I think people need to be aware that not everything revolves around their country and other parts of the world have systems and classifications that deserve to be respected too.