Our Sister Killjoy

Content Warning: This section includes discussions of anti-Black racism and anti-gay bias. Instances of racial slurs have been obscured in direct quotes.

“What is frustrating, though, in arguing with a [n-word] who is a ‘moderate’ is that since the interests he is so busy defending are not even his own, he can regurgitate only what he has learnt from his bosses for you.”

Sissie rejects the arguments of fellow Africans who only parrot what white Europeans have to say, arguing that they have bought into a colonial mindset rather than liberating themselves in a true post-colonial framework. This belief is the backbone of Sissie’s Post-Colonial African Identity for the rest of the book.

“For the rest of her life, she was to regret this moment when she was made to notice differences in human colouring.”

Having grown up in Africa, Sissie has never been forced to see race as a driving force in how people understand each other. Part of her European education involves understanding and living within this system of racial categorization.

“For a child to grow up

To be a

Heaven-worthy individual,

He had

To have

Above all, a

Christian name.”

In Ghana, pre-colonial naming traditions were often replaced by Christian ones during the colonial period, conferring social value on Christian converts. The continuation of Christian naming traditions even after decolonization feeds into the European notion that Africa must adhere to European standards to be taken seriously, speaking to the fraught issue of Post-Colonial African Identity.