Last night, my children and I had a vivid conversation over dinner about recent global political events. The tone was passionate. And something in me stirred, a memory of similar conversations at my childhood table. Adults would speak, and we, the children, would listen quietly. And though we didn’t always understand, those words planted seeds of awareness, of questioning, of resistance.
In my home, we spoke early about the role of women in society. Early on, I grasped (sometimes vaguely) that injustice existed, that power was unevenly distributed, that some fights were necessary. I was twelve when my parents gave me So Long a Letter by Mariama Bâ. I may not have fully grasped its depth at the time, but I was marked by it, by a woman’s voice, African and clear, naming both the personal and the political in the same breath.
I knew what racism was long before I experienced it directly. I was awakened early. And today, I try to offer that same awakening to my children.
Because when you are African, when you are young, you cannot afford to grow up without political consciousness or cultural grounding. The stakes are too high, too many. The world doesn’t wait for us. And often, those who govern us speak the language of power but not of people, their only compass being colonially inherited values and capitalism’s logic.
So, around the table, we dissect. We name things. We read (we try). We argue too. But above all, we learn to think. To connect the dots. To feel the ties between what’s happening here and there, between what seems distant and what hits home.
This isn’t about being militant, it’s a way of life. A deep understanding of systems, of oppression, of power and history, is not just a reading lens, it’s a key to liberation. And it must be given, shared, passed on from a young age.
I’m not trying to turn my children into walking encyclopedias of injustice. I want them to be clear-eyed, rooted, alive. I want them to see beneath the surface, recognize structures, choose their battles. And do it all while holding tight to a strong sense of who they are and where they come from.
It often begins at the table. And maybe one day, they’ll remember these nights too. With tenderness. And with a spark of fire in their eyes.