"The idea of Africa as a country is almost a positive"

Claude:
In Monday’s episode we talked with three Africans who have just moved to America. And for this extended episode, I wanted to talk to someone who’s been here a little while longer.

Yinka Adegoke is a Nigerian who’s been living in the US for the last 18 years. He’s the editor for the media platform Semafor Africa. We spoke about the stereotypes that people have about Nigerians – you can probably guess which ones I’m talking about – and why exactly Yinka never takes these stereotypes personally. We spo...

Claude:
In Monday’s episode we talked with three Africans who have just moved to America. And for this extended episode, I wanted to talk to someone who’s been here a little while longer.

Yinka Adegoke is a Nigerian who’s been living in the US for the last 18 years. He’s the editor for the media platform Semafor Africa. We spoke about the stereotypes that people have about Nigerians – you can probably guess which ones I’m talking about – and why exactly Yinka never takes these stereotypes personally. We spoke about how fashion is one of the best ways to celebrate that elusive pan-African identity. And we spoke about what it means – 18 years on for Yinka and 26 years on for me – to be an African in New York.

Here’s our conversation.

Yinka Adegoke, welcome to Limitless Africa, it’s great to have you. There’s a lot that we need to discuss, you and I, because we are citizens of the world but we are Africans who also hold American passports and also have had a lot of experiences in Europe so it’s always good to reflect on the state of the nations and the state of the continent. So before we get started I wanted to ask you about the whole notion of Africa being a country and if you have had any experiences with that.

As you introduce yourself to people in the United States has anyone actually expressed the fact that they thought that Africa was a country.

Yinka:
Well I guess I’m fortunate that my entry into the US was with a big international organization. So you know you’d like to think that wouldn’t happen directly. But I think what happens – and you’ll understand this – is that it’s somewhat implied rather than said at that kind of level.

People don’t say… In fact, people go out of their way saying Africa’s not a country. But it’s implied in the kind of questions you asked because you asked the same sorts of questions about you know, I don’t know, war or conflict or what have you.

You’re asked about those questions and very rarely about anything to do with the unique culture of the place you actually come from. There isn’t often enough curiosity and discussion on that level. It’s very much a sort of a broad brush kind of conversation. So even though, no one sort of says Africa is a country over the last few years, it’s implied. It’s just there in the air in the conversations that you have.

Claude:
And well that’s really the reason I wanted to start this conversation with that question because I’m from Togo and in my 26 years living in New York actually very few people that I’ve introduced myself as a Togolese immigrant and now a Togolese-American citizen very few people knew where Togo is. Whereas you’re from Nigeria which is the largest country on the continent by population and and then I’m just thinking wow if you sometimes introduce yourself as a Nigerian and some people don’t know where Nigeria is then we have a problem so is this something you’ve ever experienced?

Yinka:
People might not know exactly where Nigeria is right? But the thing about Nigeria – and this is why I emphasize the population – is that not only does Nigeria have a large population where it has a large diaspora population in places. We often make the joke among Nigerians is: if you go somewhere and you don’t find a Nigerian, the place isn’t worth living, right? Like this disruption, the economic disruption in the country over the last forty years, disruption coming after economic wealth, right? The oil boom and then followed by all this disruption has just happened over the last forty years. It means people have high expectations for themselves. So they’ve gone out into the world to look for it if they can’t get it at home. So you will find Nigerians in all kinds of places and that means at some point, in the biggest cities, somebody has worked with, gone to school with, had a classmate, had a nurse, so you know someone has interacted with a Nigerian, one Nigerian, right? And, you know sometimes that ends up, you know, that one experience I had represents everything and that’s a different type of problem.

But you’re right, if you are from some of the larger countries, it’s a slightly different experience. People will reference the one positive experience they had just because they’ve just met you and they don’t want to say I Met a Nigerian and they were terrible.

A lot reference … this guy I played rugby with at school was really good. So you’re fine. (But I can’t play rugby!)

Claude:
Nigeria has an image in of itself and we’ll come back to that. But the reason I want to really stay on this for a couple more minutes is I feel that many Americans still haven’t realized that there’s countries or there are many countries on the African continent and often people refer to people like you and I as just Africans in the way that they would not refer to a Frenchman as a European.

Right, in a way that they wouldn’t call an Italian a European. They would just say this person is from Italy, this person is from France and they have kind of wrapped their heads around all kinds of different nations in Europe and so what does that mean for our identity. I always kind of wonder is it a good thing? That we would just be bucketed into the African category or should we be kind of pushing for national identities as a Togolese, as Nigerian and so on. What is your take on that?

Yinka:
It’s a really complicated question. Mainly because you and I are both media thinkers you know? So I comment on it from a media perspective. But I think it applies in other aspects as well.

This whole idea of being African to be frank is something that exists outside our countries. It does in many of our countries aside from a few, I think, maybe Ghana because of Kwame Nkrumah and South Africa because of their unique histories. We become African when we leave the continent. That comes with all kinds of baggage and issues and because the image of Africa in itself, it is not that any of us love the image of Africa in the world and is’ something that you and I have dedicated large parts of our professional careers to try to tell a more complete story. But the idea of being African in itself is very much something that exists outside of Africa. We are always Nigerian first you know Zambian first whatever whichever country you come from? That’s the fact, in those countries and lots of people think of themselves first from whatever ethnic group they come from before they even think of their national identity.

When I talked about that reference to media, so much of this is really about this idea of well, okay, how do we redefine this and make this less about this image than we’re portrayed as. Because there’s so much to these 54 countries. There’s so much to these 2000 languages. There’s so much to these you know I don’t know how many ethnic groups off top of my head. There’s just so much of the culture, so much to the industry, and all the rest of it, let’s tell those stories let’s have that image.

Claude:
Last night I was having dinner with a Nigerian friend because there’s many Nigerians in New York and there’s many Nigerians all over the world. As you said there’s just many Nigerians period and he was talking about obviously food and he was talking about egusi soup and you know being the typical Nigerian thing and obviously I grew up in togo eating egusi soup except we don’t call it that in Togo and sometimes I do wish Africa were a country in that sense that we didn’t have these artificial barriers between Nigeria Benin Togo. That’s really a lot of the same food and a lot of these cultures yet it gets divided.

Yinka:
Yes, there’s so much commonality. And it makes sense right? We didn’t really really have these borders, people were moving back and forth. The Yoruba for example, are spread through Benin and Togo and many other ethnic groups. So it makes perfect sense right? And actually this idea of Africa as a country is almost a positive. It is really an interesting idea.

There are two ways to look at it. There’s a whole thing that used to be on Twitter when Twitter was Twitter as they say, where the ‘Africa as a country’ meme was not positive but it was kind of interesting. It was kind of intellectually interesting, which was this idea that we have many of the same problems right? That we have many of the same challenges but with a bit more nuance and and depth to the idea in terms of the really random things that governments would do that you think were unique to your country and then once you start to look at the African landscape you realize: oh okay so they’re solving these problems in the same way.

We tend to think of it just in terms of the headlines, right? Like they haven’t coups in one country and they’re having a coup in the next country. But actually they did all kinds of crazy things like you know with taxes, with paperwork, with taxes that you find in African countries that just make no sense because they inherited some colonial system and they’ve just laid on top of the colonial system.

Like some French or British system and they just laid on top of layers and layers. And they have all those kinds of common problems where you can apply that Africa as a country thing in a more thoughtful way right? How do we solve these problems together right? Because we see you have this same problem that we have, how do we address these challenges?

But then you think about it to your original prescription of it which is you’re out in the world and everybody thinks you’re all one and the same. Well maybe you make a market out of that right? Maybe you create a market to which you sell a great media brand or you have a great fashion brand. Fashion fashion is a great example of where this is almost a positive right? People just say oh yeah, what is African fashion right? What is modern African fashion? If you look across Africa you start to see some very interesting things about the way particularly men … across Africa, it started out of West Africa, the kind of the top and down that men wear that the two-piece that men wear. You can see this spreading across Africa. We shouldn’t all be wearing a European suits right in our hot weather and you can see that’s starting to happen where people are ah ah, creating fashion that is easier and is distinctive and is African. It is not of a particular country. This is happening in fashion. I actually need to think about this a little bit more, perhaps write about it, but actually you can see this kind of modern African identity right? When even though we are these 54 different countries, even though we are all these different cultures and ethnic groups, and to navigate the modern world, to navigate the twenty-first century into the twenty second, we need to have a kind of modern African identity that we we shape ourselves.

Claude:
It’s interesting that you naturally went to that topic because that’s a topic that’s very close to my own sensibilities. I think about the Africa Fashion show that was at the Brooklyn Museum in New York last year which was a blockbuster show for the Brooklyn museum and it was a great show but I went to the opening with my mom who was a seamstress in Togo when I was growing up and what was interesting about that experience is that the shop that they had in there, the shop is again a shop from Lagos and I was thinking oh my God Togo was known for the wax prints that we used to export.

Yinka:
Even in Nigeria people use Togo seamstresses and tailors as we call them. Togolese and Ghanaian tailors, their handiwork, were held in the highest regard when I was kid.

Claude:
Exactly and then now when you go to the Brooklyn Museum in New York and you see the Africa fashion show and you see that once again that the dominant aesthetic is the Nigerian aesthetic I’m thinking. Wow.

When we listen to music. It’s all about Afro beats, when we watch films, it’s all about Nollywood from Nigeria. When we think of the intellectuals, it’s mostly Nigerian intellectuals. You know the tradition all the way going back to Wole Soyinka who was I think the first african who won a Nobel prize for literature all the way to Chimamanda now or Teju Cole you know it’s always Nigerians dominating. Even me and my experience teaching on Harvard University over the past eight years most of my African students have been Nigerian. And I’ll even say in some years I had more Nigerian students than African-American students at Harvard University. Why am I saying that? Nigeria is the dominant country but at the same time. In some aspects economically it’s a really big debate, this Nigerian debate, as to the role Nigeria could play in the world. However, when you were mentioning your own Nigerian identity, I can’t help but think of how Nigerians are perceived in other African countries.

And also how they’re perceived in countries outside of Africa. Let me give you an example. Just last week you remember that Elvis Presley’s Graceland was almost foreclosed on by a self-described scammer from Nigeria who literally tried to foreclose on the king’s estate and and when the New York Times actually found a way to this scammer from Nigeria he said well Americans are very gullible and and I thought it was really interesting that someone sitting in Nigeria could attempt and nearly managed to foreclose on Elvis Presley’s Graceland estate. And why am I saying that? It’s that there’s also this image that Nigerians are scammers. How do you think of your own image as an Nigerian?

If you’re going to be looking at how the world perceives you as a Nigerian and Nigerians in general.

Yinka:
It’s weird because I think when you come from a really big country right? How can I say this? The country is big enough to have all these things and have all these people.

Think about the range of Indians that you know right? It’s just all types of Indians that you know right? There’s no fields in which they are not because they are a billion people. So it’s the same sort of thing with Nigerians where it’s like there’s a whole type of person.

In fact I put it this way Claude if I meet someone and they kind of make some sort of assumption about me because I’m Nigerian which is to do with something like the scammers I immediately dismissed that person as an intellectually weak person. Because I think like you what kind of people are you interacting with? That you would think that you meet me and think that, and put me in that bucket. Because I just think that people who are out in the world and meet a wide range of people are not likely to think that.

Now I have the privilege of being able to say that because I move in circles where I can do that. I’m not out there trying… I’m trying to think of a normal hustle of everyday life right? That could be very tough if you’re a young Nigerian who’s just come to a country or something and people are asking you ridiculous questions.

I must also understand that can affect people. The first interaction anyone ever many Americans ever have with Nigerians are these emails that people send. And that can be a problem in terms of how countries are seen. if you are in the world just trying to get your first job or something like that.

Claude:
Right? Well well on that note of the first job, you and I both came as journalists and New York ended up being the place that kind of kept us here right? Because we’ve been here for a while.

Yinka:
18 years now, it’s insane. Insane.

Claude:
18 years… Yeah me 26… What were the greatest surprises and culture clashes from somebody who had come in from the UK and who had lived between the UK and Nigeria ah tell us about those culture clashes.

Yinka:
I think the main one is just how much faster everything moved, right.

I think a few weeks after I’ve been here I went to some some event that I often tell the story to people of some event, it was a birthday for the boss of Sony, right. The Sony conglomerate right? Howard Stringer’s the CEO and he had this birthday with 500 of his closest friends or so not something and journalists whatever in a hall somewhere, somehow as one would. And Carly Simmon goes and sings, you know, just a standard kind of thing!

I sat at the back of the room and and I sat next to this guy, he seemed like a fairly standard looking guy. And I the only thing that made me look at him twice was that his wife had on this necklace, these pearls. I think this guy’s got money. He looks really important. It turns out he’s, and I forget his name right now, he was chairman of Morgan Stanley or something and chairman of what used to be Northwest Airlines. He sat at the back of this room and turns out he was a really good friend of Howard Stringer but he just was like a quiet person not trying to be up there in the front and then we start talking about he was also the chairman of Yahoo. I tell him what I cover and he’s ah you pay me. He asked me: have you been paying attention to this Facebook thing and I was like yeah I have been. We offered them a billion dollars to buy Facebook. And I mean this story had kind of been out there so it wasn’t totally like breaking news but it was kind of interesting him talking about it. I don’t remember the exact words but he was kind of basically implying like that was ridiculous. How could that guy not take a billion dollars. And whenever I tell this story – and because that’s one of my New York stories about how amazing New York is – about talking to this person about a billion dollar deal but then look at how much Facebook is worth today. Like $900000000000 today. That’s the kind of thing that could happen in New York on a random Wednesday evening or something.

Yeah, because I could have met someone like that in London perhaps but not without jumping through hoops and asking favors.

Claude:
Do you consider yourself an American at this point?

Yinka:
I guess I do. This is one of those things where I talk about our respective privileges right? You’re in a place where you can choose to be something when it’s convenient or or well you choose not to not bring it up right? The truth of the matter is that the way the world works now means that the idea of citizenship is becoming much more fluid concept, to use the word of our times. There are clearly countries and political players who will push back at this for whatever reasons, sometimes actually for good reasons, but some people will abuse it sometimes for their own gain. I mean I might not feel American in the way that someone like my children who were born and raised here… I might not feel that in quite the same way they do. But I certainly will feel that if I’m travelling with an American passport right? And I and I show up somewhere, and someone harassed me or something I certainly will feel American at that moment. I might not be able to tell you what the scores are for the Yankees … I don’t know any of that stuff. But then again, I wasn’t an expert on test cricket either.

I am quite comfortable being a lot of different things as I navigate the world. I don’t stop and think: Oh I am now American and I switch off everything else or now I switch to Nigerian. Listen closely to me speak. I now tease myself about this idea that my sentences start somewhere in South London, pass through Lagos and on Sunday I end up with some American business speak, in one sentence right?

We are all of these things. We’re not just the one thing that anybody wants to frame us as. Obviously when you’re out there in the world some people will just have you as one thing because it’s convenient. And you know you just have to accept that.

Claude:
I’m glad you you mentioned the yankees because I’ve reflected on the fact that I’ve become a new yorker and I am a new yorker and I’ve been living in New York 26 years as I said and even though I don’t know the yankee scores I still feel very much like a new yorker maybe more than I feel like an American so it’s interesting how we can identify the certain cities or countries or just mindsets.

Claude:
What is the best thing about Nigeria and what is the best thing about the United States to you?

Yinka:
I think Nigeria it’s definitely the people. I’m obviously Nigerian but particularly because I’ve been doing this work where I’ve had more pan African interaction and seeing people and seeing different countries that I never used to see before I suddenly have come to appreciate Nigerians. A lot of them outperform the circumstances from which they come across the board and I’m constantly impressed.

America, despite everything, it remains a land of opportunity where great things can happen. I think you’re a classic example of that. And you know many people like that. People come to this country without the great advantages or privileges somehow and they do great things. Great things can happen in this country still even with all the crazy sorts of so-called divisions and politics and what have you?

This is still a country where great things can happen for individuals. And in a way that it still just can’t happen in other countries in the same way at least without, you know, being part of some sort of, you know, swearing allegiance to some sort system. You can actually do that in this country without having to be friends with the President. You can actually do, amazing things here.

Claude:
Thank you so much Tinka. It’s been a fascinating conversation

Yinka:
Thank you for having me again.

***
Thank you so much to Yinka for coming on to Limitless Africa. If you enjoyed the episode, please share it with your friends – that’s how we get the word out about the podcast. And don’t forget to rate and review us on Apple or Spotify.