Someone Called You Black. You Called Yourself Nigerian. You Were Both Right.
It happens in conversation, in forms, in hospital waiting rooms, in job applications. A box appears. You are asked to pick one. African. Black. Mixed. Other. And for a moment just a moment you hesitate. Not because you do not know who you are. But because none of these boxes were designed to hold all of you.
This is not a small thing. Identity is not a small thing. And for women whose history has been scattered across continents, whose culture lives in two time zones at once, whose roots were interrupted by forces they did not choose the question of who you are is one of the most important questions you will ever sit with.
So let us sit with it properly.
The Question That Needs to Be Asked
Why does it matter what we call ourselves and who gets to decide?
Because names carry history. And history shapes how the world sees you and how you see yourself.
African is a continental identity. It is vast, diverse, and specific all at once. Africa is home to 54 countries recognised by the United Nations, over 1.5 billion people, and more than 3,000 distinct ethnic groups speaking over 2,000 languages [1]. A Yoruba woman from Lagos and a Zulu woman from Johannesburg are both African. But their food, their language, their traditions, their spiritual practices entirely their own. African identity is not a monolith. It never was. The danger is when the world or we ourselves treat it like one.
Black is a political and racial identity. It was not something African people chose it was constructed. According to American University’s research on racial capitalism, the identity “Black” was created during the transatlantic slave trade as a means to erase enslaved Africans’ ethnic identities and reduce them to commodity objects [2]. Before that, shared African ethnic identities Yoruba, Mandinka, Igbo were the markers of belonging. The concept of a unified Black racial identity did not exist until it was imposed [3]. And yet, from that wound grew solidarity. To be Black today is to share a racialised experience across borders to be seen, treated, and too often harmed in similar ways by systems that do not stop to ask where you are actually from.
Afro-diasporic identity belongs to those whose African ancestry was scattered by slavery, by colonisation, by migration across the Caribbean, the Americas, Europe, and beyond. The transatlantic slave trade forcibly displaced an estimated 12 million Africans between the 16th and 19th centuries [4]. Their descendants Afro-Brazilian, Afro-Caribbean, African-American carry Africa in their blood but not always in their memory. To be Afro-diasporic is to grieve a culture that was deliberately severed and to spend a lifetime, sometimes consciously, sometimes not trying to piece it back together.
At MyLurah, we’ve built a community where we come together to share our experience and help each other with deep questions that felt unanswered as Black, not for discrimination but for encouragement to embrace our uniqueness with pride.
Where It Gets Complicated and Real
These identities overlap. They contradict. They coexist inside the same woman, sometimes inside the same conversation.
A Nigerian woman living in London is African by origin, Black by racialised experience in Britain, and Afro-diasporic by the reality of navigating her identity between two continents. She may often feel pressured to simplify her identity. But she will often be forced to by forms, by assumptions, by the exhausting question of “where are you really from?” as though the first answer was not enough.
For Black women especially, this navigation is not just personal. It is medical. It is political. Research from the KFF found that about 1 in 5 Black women report being treated unfairly by a healthcare provider because of their racial or ethnic backgroud and that Black women with racially concordant providers consistently report better care, more time, and more cultural understanding during visits [5]. The system has long collapsed all Black and brown bodies into a single category, overlooking cultural, social, and lived experiences that can influence communication, stress, nutrition, healthcare access, and trust in medical systems.
As one participant in a Boston University study put it plainly: “We’re not all the same. There are many experiences that differ from one culture to the next.” [6]
Knowing the difference between these identities is not an academic exercise. It is an act of self-preservation. It is the foundation of knowing what you need, who you are, and what kind of care medical, emotional, cultural you actually deserve..
You Do Not Have to Collapse Yourself Into One Word
You are allowed to be African and Black and diasporic and everything in between. You are allowed to claim all of it, none of it, or a different combination depending on the day, the room, and who is asking.
At MyLurah community group, we believe identity should never be reduced to a checkbox. Our community creates space for Black women across cultures and diasporas to share experiences, ask questions, and feel understood.
What you are not required to do is shrink. Not for a form. Not for a conversation. Not for a healthcare system that wants a checkbox where there should be a conversation.
Your identity is not a problem to be categorized. It is a story to be understood starting with you, by you, on your own terms.
You were not born into confusion. You were born into complexity. There is a difference and it matters.
References
- TheCollector — Africa’s Population and Ethnic Groups: https://www.thecollector.com/most-populous-country-in-africa/
- American University — Racial Capitalism and the Creation of “Black” Identity: https://www.american.edu/sis/news/20260205-racial-capitalism-from-the-transatlantic-slave-trade-to-today.cfm
- Lowcountry Digital History Initiative — Slavery Before the Trans-Atlantic Trade: https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/africanpassageslowcountryadapt/introductionatlanticworld/slaverybeforetrade
- Fiveable — African Diaspora Definition: https://fiveable.me/key-terms/ap-world/african-diaspora
- KFF — Five Facts About Black Women’s Experiences in Health Care: https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/five-facts-about-black-womens-experiences-in-health-care/
- Boston University — Racism, Sexism, and the Crisis of Black Women’s Health: https://www.bu.edu/articles/2023/racism-sexism-and-the-crisis-of-black-womens-health/
