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Have you ever instantly developed a deep admiration for somebody for who they are as a person? I last felt this way about Barack Obama (even before he became POTUS44), and I feel similarly about Bozoma Saint John – Uber's current Chief Brand Officer. Her story is remarkable to me
Bozoma was born in Connecticut to Ghanaian parents. She grew up moving frequently, including to Ghana and Kena, before settling down in Colorado. She was obviously Not White, but she was also not quite African-American, and not quite African. A foreigner everywhere. I feel this.
(My personal lil' version of this, for comparison. I was born in SG to a Tamil family. I'm a minority here. My Tamil is pretty terrible, so I'm an outsider within the Tamil community. Indians from India typically think of me as a Singaporean. Elsewhere, people assume I'm Indian.)
Bozoma's life story reminds me of Obama's, and punches through my heart in the same way. These funny-colored kids with funny-sounding names, casually ostracized for being different, diving deep into the culture of their peers to understand them better than they know themselves https://t.co/CwD3jqHCML
In my own life, I have taught myself so much about SG history, Chinese culture, American pop culture. Lately I've been reading up about Indian history and pop culture, too. Because there is no table at the cafeteria for kids who look and sound like us. We have to earn our seats. https://t.co/tg5fAzDjhr
Obama still blows my mind, too. A non-Hawaiian in Hawaii. A non-Indonesian in Indonesia. A Christian with a Muslim name. A half-Black dude in white society. A half-White guy in black society. No in-group. No table at the cafeteria. No way to blend in, no archetype to follow. https://t.co/RJsTacaHbO
