Why “Why” is crucial in telling minority stories

I have spent the last year working as an independent journalist for some of the world’s biggest news organizations. From Aljazeera to BBC, and DW.  Splitting my time between Lagos, Nigeria, and Kampala, Uganda, both cities I hold close to my heart and doing this journalism work. 

Before going solo, I served as an Editor with First Culture for nearly three years, a role that howbeit challenging was one I thoroughly enjoyed. I realize in retrospect that it was because First Culture gave me the space to write and edit the Africa I wanted. 

Not necessarily the Africa that was or the Africa that was supposed to be, but the Africa I wanted. 

At my interview for the role at a bar in Lekki, Lagos, I remember looking into Jeffrey Daniel’s eyes and seeing passion; here was a man who in his 60’s had choreographed Michael Jackson and was part of a largely successful band but who through it all believed in a version of Africa, and who was willing to start a media company just to propagate this version. 

I remember him saying to me and I paraphrase here, “There’s so much we don’t know as Africans, so much history has been erased.”

Three years down the line, it is clear to me that I am now in many ways like Jeffrey. I have started Minority Africa and serve as Managing Editor primarily to propagate the version of Africa I want because I too believe there’s so much the world doesn’t know about African minorities.  

When people ask me, what I say is that Minority Africa is a digital publication providing multimedia solutions content on African minority communities and persons using an approach that is data-driven and highly interactive, but it is a lot more than that. 

Minority Africa is at the rudiments the “Why.” Journalism fundamentally teaches us the five W’s and H and although none is supposed to be more important than the other, I have nonetheless in my personal experience learned the “Why” to be of most value. 

It is because “Why” lets us question the intent, it allows for introspection, for going back to the drawing board, it is the dock of context, the beginning of innovation. But we aren’t asking Why in Africa as often as we should, and a quick evaluation of google searches shows that we are a continent driven by asking “How?”

France, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, and Malaysia are the top five countries that google the term, “Why.” “How” on the other hand is googled most in Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, Ghana, and South Africa. This ranges from search terms like “Why were cornflakes invented?” to “How to vote #india.”

[infogram id=”why-and-how-search-trends-1h8n6m77wkmm6xo?live”]

I am from Nigeria and still live there for at least three months a year, so I know that this is true. And there is nothing, I must add, innately wrong with asking How, it shows that one is interested in finding out new information, a new way to approach a problem. But the challenge with how is that it predicates on the solutions and innovations of others without giving room to deduce your approach. 

Why on the other hand can give a deeper look at a situation and allows for one to think up an intervention. It is Why that is most important when I report on how bicycle ambulances are saving lives in Uganda, Why that is most essential in this story I write from Lagos on how LGBT Nigerians looking to find love online are duped instead. 

So, there is a place in the world for where, when, what, who, and how, but none of these are contextual without the why. 

In this vein, why Minority Africa? 

The most common answer to this type of question I have heard from the bulk of conferences I have attended even from veterans and whenever a marginalized group is brought up is “To give them a voice,” or “To give a voice to the voiceless.”  

This is a train of thought I find incredibly disturbing. Not least because it connotes that a certain class of people are voiceless but even more so because it implies that you, because of some level of privilege, are the voice.

What we provide as Minority Africa is a platform for minority stories, we are not the voice, we are never the voice, the voice is personal, it is speaking and it is loud. 

It is the half a dozen Ugandan trans men and women who sit with me at a table in an Ethiopian restaurant and tell me how they are challenging a system designed to kill them, that mellifluous sound is not voiceless, it is snaking its way into parliament, into the minds of policymakers and platforms like ours. 

The voice is the thousands of persons living with albinism from Congo who have fled home fearing death to build a new life in Uganda, the voice is this new life that is being built. 

And so, the pertinent question at this point becomes, “What is this voice saying?” Why brings us to the What. 

Our perception of minority groups means that most people expect this voice to be pity laden, soliciting for help because being marginalized surely must mean that one cannot engineer any interventions? We think otherwise. 

From Lagos to Nairobi, to Windhoek, minority groups and persons are chairing solutions, but these interventions are under-reported or not reported at all. 

What is this voice saying? This voice is speaking about the conflict, but it is also venting about the solutions, we just don’t hear the latter. This is where we come in, to through examining the Why then being able to provide content that caters to an overlooked side of the What. 

We are not speaking, we are merely amplifying. That is not to say that you will not hear our voice in these pages, we acknowledge our biases and we now well know that objectivity is not giving a platform to your oppressors. 

But even if you hear us, may it be the faintest sound, for we are not the voice, and through constantly asking Why, we are reminded of Who the voice is, of What the voice is saying, When that voice is speaking, from Where it is speaking, and How it is speaking. 

Every editor whether or not editing Africa or minorities must learn to return to the Why. Why should I run this story? Why should I take this angle? Whose voice am I suppressing so that this voice can rise? Is that a voice that should be heard? 

With Minority Africa, we are suppressing the conflict. Is it a voice that should be heard still? Yes indeed, I do not think that solutions journalism needs to replace regular journalism as we know it, I, however, think they should co-exist.  

And so even with minority stories, there is a place for conflict, there is a place for solutions and there is the Why somewhere in between. 

 

Caleb Okereke is the Managing Editor at Minority Africa. Read about our mission here.