My story embodies my unique yet universal journey as a Nigerian-American. I believe you can never really find yourself, but instead, you can only know you want to be. Gatsby believed in the green light and a distant reality and so do I. In order to find who I want to be, I had to face myself and society. For ten years of my life I attended a Catholic school. Often, private schools are very small. Everyone knows everyone. There was set behavior, morals and obviously belief system. Moreover, 8th grade was a huge turning point in my life. Prior to that, my identity was never really questioned. I have battled a few racist students here and there, but under the stereotypes placed upon Black Americans. Moreover, this never really bothered me because …show more content…
Although I hated this place with a passion, I wouldn’t be who I am today if it wasn’t for going there. Reality came in the form of a brick and hit me in my head. In “Allegory of the Cave”, plato expresses the importance of knowledge and the powerful influence it has on our perception of reality. Contrary, this school disillusioned me and welcomed me to the real world. My new school was predominately black and hispanic opposed to my Catholic school. I assumed I would fit right in but I was wrong. The Black Americans at that school found it absolutely absurd that an African person was claiming to be black. That isn’t just ignorant, but ridiculous. Kids are ruthless. They told me I belong outside with the monkeys, they asked me why I had hair because all African children are bald, and they always told me “Oh you’re black, but you’re not really black”. Plato said “..it's plain to everyone that the [rational part of the soul] with which we learn is always entirely directed toward knowing the truth." At this time it struck me that I needed to understand why these people have an irrational disgust for my heritage. My dad is my primary source of information so I went to him