North to Paradise

by Ousman Umar

Children are just work mules; nobody pays much attention to them. Elders are the wisest because they have lived the longest. Since knowledge is hard to come by, the best way to learn something is to ask an elder.

Looking back on my childhood, I can see these lofty ideas about white people and Europe seem absurd because of course talent, intelligence, and strength have no color. But these attitudes didn’t take shape overnight: they are the product of centuries of enslavement, exploitation, colonialism, and what ultimately amounts to a white-supremacist marketing campaign to convince Black people to undervalue their own worth.

“Forward ever, backward never.” I took refuge in that sentence. Just keep moving forward, without indulging negative thoughts.

One of the saddest things I learned on my journey is that in this life, no one gives you anything for free. They always want something in exchange: it’s human nature. Or at least, it’s the nature of the system that humans live in.

On my journey north, I saw so many people behaving worse than animals, motivated by such greed that they had no humanity. But then a person who was more vulnerable and exploited than I was reached out and shared what little she had. These are the moments that I try to remember, moments of our shared humanity.

Sometimes, the smallest detail in the present can determine your entire future.

Given all the hardship I’ve experienced, it would be easy to think that the world is full of bad people, but I prefer to think that most people are good. It’s just that the good people make less noise.