By Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò
Thursday, March 5, 2026.
At various platforms in the past, I have criticized scholars of Africa, both indigenes and expatriates, for not taking seriously the complexity of life in African societies, for unwarranted homogenization of the realities present in them, and for always trying, even when there is no need to do so, to show that Africa deserves a peculiar mode of discourse radically different from those within which the realities of other peoples are apprehended and understood. At the same time, I have often wondered what it would be like for an African scholar, armed with the same powerful instruments that enable scholars in Europe and North America to objectify Africa and force its phenomena into a box named “difference”, to use the language of African Studies to describe the reality of, say, the United States of America. Fortunately, I stumbled upon an unpublished text that does exactly what I have wondered about. I present in what follows a long excerpt, unglossed, from the introduction to the manuscript. I hope, dear reader, that you find it as enlightening and instructive as I did.
The Americans are a people that inhabit the geographical territory bounded in the north by Canada, in the east by the Atlantic Ocean, in the west by the Pacific Ocean, and in the south by Mexico. Although there are controversies about their origins, the dominant account traces their beginnings to the seventeenth century, when a group of migrants seeking new opportunities for personal glory and service to their king set sail from an island called Britain to the northeast across the Atlantic Ocean. They settled in the northeast of the present-day United States, engaging in murderous wars with the previous inhabitants of this land known variously as “Amerindians”, “Indians”, or “Native peoples”. Only recently have efforts been made to incorporate the period before the arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers, as they were called, into the history of the United States. After their arrival, the settlers organized themselves into communities that collectively became a colony of Britain, their original homeland. The colony became independent in 1776 after a bloody but brief war of independence. The Americans have lived as an independent country called the United States of America ever since.
Their history can be divided into three broad periods: the precolonial period ending in the sixteenth century; the colonial period that ended with the declaration of independence in 1776; and the post-colonial period that has lasted till now. The focus in this introduction is on the post-colonial period. Generally, we shall give a thumbnail sketch of the life of the Americans and of the elements that make up the American identity.
Most Americans live in rural areas. Yet they have a larger percentage of any people of urban dwellers. Whether they live in large sprawling cities or compact rural settlements, the architecture of their dwellings is pretty much uniform. In either case, one can find single-family housing that varies in size from the modest one-room shack in the poorer districts to huge multi-room mansions in the more affluent areas. But these dwellings do not interest us because they are indistinguishable from similar kinds in other parts of the world. It is a different kind of dwelling that is nearly peculiar to Americans that we wish to focus on. These dwellings are called, appropriately enough, skyscrapers.
The name “skyscrapers” is well chosen because one would not be wrong to say that they do scrape the sky. In fact, they make such patterns in the sky that it is not unusual for Americans to identify their sprawling urban settlements by their skyline. Skyscrapers are human-made mountains with several holes bored into them through which the inhabitants enter, exit, and ventilate their units. Because of the sheer height of these mountains, special mechanical contraptions called lifts are required to move people up and down the mountains. This is just as well. For I once tried to run up the stairs that had been sculpted into one of the skyscrapers, and by the time I got halfway, I was on the verge of passing out for lack of breath. If they did not have those box-like “lifts”, the country would have had a high mortality rate of people passing out on account of stair climbing. Given the sheer size of these skyscrapers and the many rooms that they contain, it is not surprising that many people reside in each one of them. Ordinarily, one would expect that living together in such large numbers in close proximity will promote community and a spirit of togetherness. But this is not the case. It is not uncommon for people who live in these skyscrapers not to know one another. Stranger still, when they meet one another, as they must, in the “lifts”, they barely acknowledge one another. Quite the contrary, serious but awkward efforts are made to avert one another’s gaze.
They have devised all kinds of contraptions to get from one place to another. Needless to say, they do a lot of walking. They even have footwear specially made for walking. However, most of the time, they prefer to move around in boxes mounted on assorted combinations of wheels made from black rubber. These boxes are called cars or automobiles. These “cars” make funny, deafening sounds that mimic the approach of rain, smoking as they move along portions of the ground that for some strange reason have been painted black with white or yellow lines bifurcating them, sometimes in equal parts, sometimes not. I must admit that these “cars” are a pleasure to behold, especially their variegated colours and shapes. Nor should I omit to mention their swiftness, which makes short work of long distances.
Considering what was said above about the dearth of community among the mountain residents, one aspect of American life deserves mention. Throughout the length and breadth of this vast country, in both urban and rural settings, there are several houses that are built, not for people to live in, but for them to eat in. That is, there are restaurants (lit.: eating houses), where people go to eat meals prepared by total strangers in the company of other strangers. Remarkably, these eating events unfold in relative peace, and they seem to enjoy them so much that they are known to linger long after the meal is finished and chat over repeated fillings of a black, funny-smelling beverage called coffee that almost always accompanies their meals. Of course, this is not to suggest that Americans don’t cook in their own homes or eat there. Indeed, at certain times of the year, for example, during their annual Thanksgiving Festival, they prepare huge feasts built around turkey that are the focal point of family reunions. Strangers are rarely invited.
American society is a patrilineal society. Descent is determined by the male line. This is much less so these days than it was in earlier times. At the present time, both male and female children can inherit property from either parent. Yet it remains a male-centred society. Marriage is patrilocal. The bride usually gives up what is known as her maiden name to assume her husband’s name. A new feature of American marriages, especially those in which there is abundant wealth, is for the parties to the union to specify what would happen to their respective holdings should the marriage collapse. It is a peculiar feature of American marriages that many who contract them do not expect them to last, and, as a result, they make elaborate plans for the break-up as they do for the initial tying of the knot.
In the past, child-rearing in their society used to be a communal undertaking. This is no longer the case. Children are idolized and fawned over by their parents. Parents hardly let the children out of their sight for any appreciable length of time unless they know who is going to be with the children. They wave the children off to school in the morning. They are there to welcome the children home in the afternoon. They chaperone them to sports meets, the cinema, etc. Adults who inhabit their neighbourhood do not concern themselves with the children or their behaviour; nor are they expected to. Kids do their best to behave in the company of their families or other known adults. They rarely care about what strangers think of their manners and other social graces. The consequence is that, outside of family circles, kids are a law unto themselves. We shall have more to say about this.
The twilight of life is not kindly regarded in American society. In most human societies, ageing is not merely accepted; it is celebrated. There is recognition for the wisdom that comes with age, and experience always attracts a premium. Meanwhile, old people wear their years and the lines that provide ocular evidence with considerable grace and an assured dignity. Children are encouraged to associate with old people so that they can augment book learning with that of the book of life, from which the wisdom of the old is derived. Not so in America. Old age is treated as an affliction. Hence, it is an offence to call someone an old person in American society.
There are no old people, only senior citizens. Senior citizenship is celebrated in many ways, but mostly in commerce. There are days set aside by merchants and providers of service when “seniors” can enjoy special discounts on their purchases. In addition, in some of the devices for transportation, special seats are made available for “seniors”. These special considerations do not mean much in light of the widespread treatment of ageing as an affliction. There are many concoctions in the market to mask the telltale signs of ageing. And their society is not lacking in all kinds of crooks and charlatans who promise all sorts of miracle cures for the ravages of age. These are all elements of a cult of youth which pervades American society. There are special residences where old people are housed. Old people are made to feel and often do feel expendable, unwanted, and, consequently, they do their best to keep out of the way of the young. What is more, the language is replete with euphemisms designed to occlude the fact of old age. People are so many years young! The expendability of old people and the relative lack of interest in or responsibility for their welfare was demonstrated recently when it took the Mayor (i.e., paramount ruler) of a major urban settlement, Chicago, to call on people to visit their older neighbours, check on them, and help them!
This article is based mostly on fieldwork conducted in Chicago in midwestem America, but much of what obtains here, with allowances made as appropriate, can be found in other parts of the country.
This piece is an excerpt from an unpublished manuscript, ‘”Introduction,” Àbáyọ̀mí Ọmọòṣeépààrọ̀, Living in America’.
Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò is a philosopher, public intellectual, and a Professor of African Political Thought at Africana Studies & Research Centre, at Cornell University, USA.
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