Our Sister Killjoy

Content Warning: This section includes discussions of anti-Black racism.

Sissie travels to England even though she has a complex relationship with it as the European power that colonized Ghana. Ghanaians have different understandings of different European countries; they sometimes conflate French colonies in Africa with France itself.

When Sissie arrives in England, she is surprised to see so many Black people. Most of them are very poor, and all of them are students. They are able to stay in England because they have received scholarships and awards, so some of them extend their studies as long as possible so that they do not have to return home. They are always badly dressed, which hurts Sissie to see. Initially, being in England makes Sissie sad, but then she starts to feel very angry.

The Black people who come to England cannot tell their families the truth of their situation, because that would mean admitting that they failed and that Europe is not actually a paradise. She considers some of the people she has met in Europe so far. One is a Scottish woman who suggests that English colonialism in Scotland was the same as in Africa. She rejects any suggestion that Scottish people were complicit in African colonialism.