The look on Uncle Agu’s face when I responded to his typically misogynistic joke with “but we all know the reason women end up with men like you is because they’ve been systematically oppressed into not knowing any better.” A taboo. An insult. How dare I speak up to a man who embodied everything that was wrong with women’s rights in Nigeria?

No longer would he praise my father for raising a “virtuous woman” or commend me for wearing ankle-length skirts; I had been banished into the underworld reserved in part for rebellious nieces who needed domestication.

I felt liberated when my parents informed me of our migration to Canada. Finally, I would be able to speak my truth without fear. Yet, relocating to Canada made me experience an even greater terror. I feared to accept the intersections of my identity. My freedom from the underworld was no longer contingent on my ability to rear children and boil rice; I now had to talk like I was singing, wear my hair straight, and continually smile so I wouldn’t be considered “angry” or “black” or “woman.” Alas, I found myself being exactly those - a woman, a black woman, an immigrant black woman.

I was accustomed to being a member of the underworld; in Nigeria, I saw blatant injustice and refused to ignore it. Yet, moving to North America, I found myself unable to speak on any of the other identities I embodied. After all, what did I know about racism? I grew up in a country where everyone was black. How could I comment on racial injustice when I hadn’t lived as an African American in America? I was the descendant of African parents, born in America, but I was not African American … That, I was constantly reminded of.

Cowardly, I decided to become silent as Uncle Agu hoped I would. I convinced myself that my accent and not my voice would be heard.

ACKNOWLEDGING SILENCE: Silencing my truth, giving acquiescence to injustice

Injustice doesn’t care about race, gender, or ethnicity. Injustice banishes all who speak into the underworld. Martin Luther King Jr. saw this reality and used his platform to advocate not just for racial equality but equality across borders. “Injustice anywhere is threat to justice everywhere.” If we looked past our hegemonic standpoint and into the history of civilization, we would recognize that the we’re the Hutu’s that mass murdered Tutsi’s, the Kony’s that gave children guns, the Al Shabaab’s that threw stones at women. Our silence enabled injustice.

Equality before many laws is legal fiction. It’s a false assumption of truth, unnatural to systems often created through oppression. The Nigerian constitution was built on colonialism. The Canadian legal system was founded on aboriginal discrimination. And America? American law was created by white males, interpreted by white males, and enforced by white males. With the backbone of many nations being oppression, silence is reprehensible.

Silence accounts for why some people insist there is current equality in America. Martin Luther King, Jr. was perhaps one of the few who understood the antithesis between fantasies and realities. Brutality disguised with sophisticated procedures and complex terminologies doesn’t negate inimical impacts on minorities. The reality is that black people are unequal recipients of police brutality, death penalty sentencing, and mass incarceration in America. Silence keeps these injustices guised under democracy. Silence reifies, giving acquiescence to injustice. Silence drowns voices that need to be heard.

REFUSING TO BE SILENT: Knowing my truth

To be a silent member of the underworld, silently angry about the killing of Trayvon Martin, silently disgusted about Trump’s muslim ban, and silently pondering about Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, is to effectively revoke my membership in the movement for justice.

I didn’t experience police brutality and don’t have ancestors who were slaves but I’m still inherently part of a system that makes false assumptions based on my national origin and color. Nigerian. Black. In Nigeria, I am a woman, in North America, I am an immigrant black woman (apparently from a shit-hole country too). My experiences oblige me to speak on issues I identify with and support others as they speak about their injustices.

REMAINING SILENT: Perfecting my truth

How straightforward is 'speaking up’ in practice? Confronting our identities is simple - they just need to be pointed out to us. Supporting social movements like March for Our Lives is easy; I myself throw fists in the air when I listen to speeches by Barack Obama or Chimamanda Adichie. We know we should resist becoming passive cover girls for diversity quotas. We know we shouldn’t forget why we came to law school: to embrace the force that we are, marching on hills with tightened fists and negotiating in houses with comprehensive lists. We know this. I know this.

However, perfectionism keeps me silent. It’s aggravating that until my words seem compelling and my actions appear formidable, I ruminate in silence, awaiting the perfect time to be heard. I calculate and overanalyze my truth as though it must look a certain way; as though it must talk like it’s singing, wear its hair straight, and continually smile. I know my silence speaks, it is action in itself. Yet, here I am. Sitting in class, silent once again.

Is there a difference between silence due to fearing one’s identity and silence due to perfectionism? The ultimate tragedy after all, Martin Luther King Jr. said, “is not oppression and cruelty by bad people but the silence over that by good people.”

I know the problem but how do I fix it? How do I deal with my ambivalence? How do I return to the years when I didn’t care about Uncle Agu’s reaction to my stance on misogyny? These are the years where my choices really matter and choosing silence is insulting to the woman that I can be. I know the problem but how do I fix it?

Doesn't have to be. A society that says "Equal Justice Under Law" above the entrance to the Supreme Court could mean it. No matter who made it in the past it could behave that way in the present. I never went through those doors without expecting to have some infinitesimal role in making the statement more true.

I don't see how "no different" is the conclusion enforced by the evidence. A great deal of history happened. White supremacy didn't disappear, or cease (yet) to be the ruling mode of organization, but that's not the same as no different. In your lifetime the United States will no longer be majority white, and white supremacy will no longer be able to appear in democratic guise. That's the immense transformation that our current social unrest prefigures. Understanding what is going on will be easier for the reader if she is given insight into the changes obviously going on around her.

The best ways to improve this draft, I think, are to reduce the tone of the rhetoric and increase the balance of dynamic as opposed to static social analysis. You don't need the blare of trumpets in order to gain your reader's attention here. She is well served by a tone that is more crafted to conversation than to addressing a rally or an army.

Substantively, as I have tried to indicate in my comments, you can gain from taking history into your historical sociology. If we see the longer contours, the present crisis, which is one of reaction, can be more clearly understood.

Equality before the law is fiction

Oh, the fear of being that which I was. The terror analogous to that of the American people, illusorily construing themselves as unlike savages, propellers of chaos, uncivilized campers across the Atlantic residing in “shit-hole” countries. My perception of identity was once synonymous to the ‘patriot’ who reveled at the golden words of the framers; skewed. “Constitution, constitution, oh the law ... the people are equal, aren’t we all?” the patriot bellowed.

Yet, equality before the law is legal fiction. It is a false assumption of truth, which is unnatural to the law. A law that has historically been created by white males, interpreted by white males, and enforced by white males cannot reasonably be thought to innately deliver equal opportunities to minorities. The assertion that people are equal before the law is but a disposition that conceals the offensiveness of a society which propels the white male view as the American view.

If the patriot looked past his hegemonic standpoint, the reflection of the constitution would glare through the eyes of the American people and the history of civilization; he would see the flaw in his judgment. He would recognize that the American people are the Hutu’s that mass murdered Tutsi’s, the Kony’s that gave children guns, the Al Shabaab’s that threw stones at women. American brutality disguised with sophisticated procedures and complex terminologies does not negate the inimical impact on minorities. Consequently, the patriot’s false perception of justice does not translate into reality.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was perhaps one of the few who understood the antithesis between fantasies and realities. The view that equal protection encompasses all Americans is fiction. The reality is that African Americans are unequal recipients of police brutality, death penalty sentencing, and mass incarceration. However, this disparity is far from shocking. If anything, it is congruent with the hegemonic function of the law. White male power is reinforced by the legal institution’s seemingly abstract and formalized system. Genovese in Roll, Jordan, Roll, identified the contradictions in the law of American slavery where courts debated on whether slaves were property without free-will or rational thinkers punishable for their actions. The arbitrary rulings favoring the white bourgeoisie are no different from that of today.

The patriot is puzzled by perception

If the patriot replaced his myopic lens’, he would realize that on American soil lies a genocide not waged by soldiers in camouflage but driven by his civilian counterparts; jurors four and one half more likely to impose a death penalty sentence on black defendants than white defendants. But having clear vision involves experiencing cognitive dissonance about his great country, displacing everything he has learnt about the law. So, for the sake of repose, comfort, and continuity, the patriot lounges in his expensive New York apartment, shaking his head at CNN broadcasts about bloodshed in Northern Nigeria while black men like Eric Garner are choked to death by law enforcement officers on Staten Island. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

The patriot frowns, irked that his commitment to justice for African Americans goes uncredited. He argues that he marched in Ferguson, created a ‘diversity’ scholarship in his firm, had one or two African American friends on retainer, and yet he is unappreciated; there are yet to be awards in his name, medals of honor for his unwearied support of the African American community. To him I ask, how comfortable are you sharing the power your ancestors delivered to your cradle? Are you truly satisfied with relinquishing the superiority bequeathed to you because your hair is blonde and your eyes are blue? Understandably, the cognitive dissonance he experiences is jarring. The fear of accepting his “self-deception and comfortable vanity” cuts across time and place. Like him, white clergymen identified as supporters of African Americans when they wrote to Martin Luther King Jr., criticizing his actions in Birmingham Alabama. Like him, “the majority of white Americans consider themselves sincerely committed to justice for the Negro; believing that the American society is essentially hospitable to fair play.” Like him, even African Americans have become content with the system.

The force is you

Similar to African American forefathers in the paternalist slave era who subdued themselves to ensure protection from slave masters, many of my brothers and sisters have restricted their opposition to the white hegemony because of the seeming ‘privileges’ they have been given. The fight for equality before the law is no longer priority for the African American student who gets to learn in classrooms once reserved for whites. The African American banker who walks in custom Tom Ford suits has lost interest in the racial profiling of his counterparts in hoods. Many of my people have become comfortable with being the token for fictional equality. They seem elated to be tools employed by the dominant hegemony to reify white superiority. No wonder the patriot is of the false perception that the people are equal!

But equality in the law is mythical. My African American people, let us not be satisfied with being the one minority hire, silencing our agency in exchange for wages our fellow sisters in the Bronx would never have the opportunity to earn. Let us resist becoming passive cover girls or poster boys for diversity quotas. Let us not sacrifice the movement for civil rights with the distorted notion that America is a post-racial country without the chaos attributed to “shit-hole” countries. Rather, let us embrace the force that we are; march on hills with tightened fists and negotiate in houses with comprehensive lists. After all, as Judge Day asserts, “real power exists outside the courts.”