Online Reporter
TEENAGE schoolgirl Mikaylah Mushinga returned to her new home in England yesterday after spending two eventful weeks back home in Zimbabwe.
Mikaylah and her family settled in England three years ago but they have been regular visitors to their real home in this country.
During the visit, Mikaylah and her family unveiled her grandmother’s tombstone.
She also unveiled her book, ‘I Am More Than The Black Girl,’ which we are covering in this newspaper.
Mikaylah will realise that she will return to England a different person to the one who left that country.
When schools reopen, she is likely to face schoolmates who have read her book and the subjects she touched on.
It’s very likely that the conversations will be quite interesting.
Mikaylah has shown remarkable bravery to put her experiences, in England in the past three years, into a book.
Her book is a refreshing read and our readers, who have been reading the extracts we have so far published in this newspaper, have also confirmed that they have found the book to be an interesting read.
She is quite bold to decide to confront issues like the racism she has suffered as she tried to settle in England.
“There were days I cried myself to sleep and days I stood up and let my anger burn through the noise,” she writes.
“I was the African girl, the girl who got jumped, the girl who refused to break inside.
“This is my story — of what it means to carry the weight of other people’s ignorance and still stand tall.
“Of finding family in the smallest kindness, strength in the sharpest pain and pride in the very thing they tried to shame.
“I’m not here to fit in. I’m here to be seen fully, loudly. Unapologetically because I am more than the label they gave me. I am more than the black girl.”
We know there are many older people, who have also settled in England, who have endured racist attacks in that country but, for one reason or another, they chose to endure it in silence.
This is not only limited to Zimbabweans.
We have seen it even in the English Premiership where cases of racism still rear their ugly heads.
It usually emerges when the black players, including those who play for the English national team, fail to perform and are accused of being responsible for the losses.
When three black English footballers — Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho —missed penalties in the shootout in the Euro final against Italy, they were all subjected to vicious racial attacks. The good thing is that these footballers, and the support organisations which have come up to help them cope with such attacks, have been very vocal.
In doing so they have managed to bring the issue of racism onto the frontline and helped the English society deal with it.
Mikaylah is just a 12-year-old girl but she has played her part to help England deal with the challenges that come with racism.
Mathew Masinge