Brendan Murphy

“My older cousins told me that white people used to be brown, like us, until they did something to anger God. He turned them into fleshless, pale shells as punishment. “Look at how their skin reddens in the sun. Look at how it burns. Look at how the sweat pours down their faces and flattens their hair.” They used my fear to convince me to steal coconut sweets and biscuits from the market—threatening me with “God said to listen, or do you want to become one of the white people?”
― Bassey Ikpi, I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays