As a toddler, I was brought to the United States by my Kenyan mother to reunite with my Nigerian father and three older siblings. My identity is rooted in my familial heritage. “What’s free? Free is when nobody else could tell us what to be, free is when the TV ain’t controllin’ what we see.’’ How does my identity translate into this Darwinist society? How do people who identify as I do, play (and win at) this “survival of the fittest” game called life, that we, Black individuals, are expected to play in the “the Land of the Free?” I recognize the intersectionality of these identities presents as a barrier to navigating a white normative infrastructure. The path to where I am now began with a deep need to better understand my identity-as a Black, Kenyan, Nigerian, queer-identifying woman. I am also the co-founder and president of the National Association of Black Physical Therapists (NABPT). I am a Clinic Director and minority partner within my company. I am a Doctor of Physical Therapy who works in an orthopedic outpatient clinic as a neurological, resident-trained physical therapist. That is the basis from which I write today. 2 The foundation of America was strongly, powerfully, and undeniably built on the grounds that any person who did not label themselves as white, heterosexual, cisgender, and male, would not have a seat at the table. In the words of Meek Mill, an American rapper and activist, I am reporting live from “The Otherside of America.” 1Īmerica-a country where a Founding Father and slave owner, Thomas Jefferson, penned ”all men are created equal,” yet enlisted scientists to prove that Black-identified-and-labeled human beings were inferior to whites. A Challenge from the “Otherside of America”:
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