WREN Stories: The Colour Black, a personal perspective

Dr Babor James Aganren, a core trainee doctor, shares a celebration of skin colour and why Black Matters

I was told that the doctor’s first words on the day I was born were “This child is going to be really black” and he was right. Growing up as a child, there was a lot of banter about my colour, some joked that I could blend into the shadows easily if I didn’t show my teeth, others said that I was the highest form of blackness and anyone who had a darker skin than mine was colourless, I made sure to reply that my colour meant that I was a more authentic African than they were, among the dark skinned I was and still am king.

I took enormous pride in my skin colour in my younger years and still do till this day, maybe because of the attention it got me, I would enter a room and people would comment about me being a true ebony, It made me feel special, easily identifiable, it was easy to describe me and I was really popular for it, the first letter of my name even had the letter B which fitted nicely. When I look at myself in the mirror, I see a tall, dark and handsome prince. My wife will disagree with the tall part though but she is just not seeing what I see 🙂 my Black is wonderful.

It was a bit of a surprise when I discovered that this skin colour which I have so much pride for happened to be seen in a negative light by some in the western world. I was continuously teased as a child for my colour but I was never judged by it. On reflection however, I realised that some of this bias came from limited contact with people who look like me and maybe the negative portrayal of Africa and those of African descent by the media, I thought it was worth describing what the colour black meant to me from my experiences as a black male.

Some symbolisms for the colour black which I found after a Google search include; “Black is associated with power, fear, mystery, strength, authority, elegance, aggression, authority, rebellion, and sophistication. Black is required for all other colours to have depth and variation of hue”.  I couldn’t have said it better myself, because to me Black is powerful, it is strong, it is filled with authority, it is mysterious, it is beautiful and elegant, it is sophistication in itself, it is needed for all other colours to have depth, it is extremely kind and full of life, so of course Black Matters!

Babor