"Do you know when you're dancing?"
"No."
"It's when you're having fun."
×××
Amirah Laylah Ahmed, a Nigerian girl who just finished high school in Nigeria decide to leave for the US to continue her education as her late grandfather had promised her...
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Waking up, I turned on my phone. With sleepy eyes I checked the time on it, 8:04, “Shit.” I cussed out loud. I jumped out of bed in a hurry. Dolling up had started four minutes ago and I was still on bed, how? That almost never happens. Dolling up was a girl show that talks about make-up, dresses, shoes and any girly stuff you could think of, it features actresses, models, singers and so on. Sylvia, my best friend was on the previous season. I can’t give a reason why I liked the show so much, but I am a girl after all.
On getting to the living room, I met no one, good, I had the TV to myself. Turning it on, I changed the channel to my show.
Already immersed in dolling up, my soul now in the TV but my body still in the living room so I didn’t notice when my elder brother, Luis walked in until the TV turned black.
Snapping myself out, I looked around confused until my eyes landed on Luis’ form till I understood what was happening. “Oh hey bro.” I acknowledged him as I stretched out my palm for him to give me back the remote so I’d switch the TV back on.
“No, I’m not giving it back to you.” He said as he drank coffee from his right hand and held the TV remote in his left hand.
A frown appeared on my face, “why?” I asked confused.
“Because I’m not letting you watch that.” He referred to Dolling up.
“Why not?”
“You know why.” He said to me and I absolutely remembered as I understood what he meant, this was why I loved the fact that most of my family were almost never home except Lily, my eight year old sister, because they were always judging me and trying to control me because I had different perspectives and beliefs from them.
“What’s going on?” my mom asked as she walked in on us, Lily beside her. She was around? How did I not know they were home, this was double trouble as they were both home.
“Mira here was watching a black show.” Luis reported me without hesitation causing a frown on my mom’s forehead.
I loved my family a lot, but I hated this part about them, they detested the black race, they didn’t want anything to do with them, watch their movies, shows, listen to their music and they hated the fact that I wasn’t like them. Ever since the incident with Aunt Veronica, they had changed into this.
“Mira tell me it’s not true.” My mom hoped.
I felt my heart drop, I hated this. “It wasn’t a black show, it just had some black people in it.” It wasn’t a white show either.
“Mira, you know we don’t watch anything like that in this house.”
“Yeah, I know.” I replied in a low voice, defeated. They were so convinced that the black race were evil and nothing else, no matter what I had said to them, say to them or will say to them to try to prove it to them, they wouldn’t listen to me.
