As a kid, I read the Tin Tin, Tarzan and the apes, Korak, Boom, Lance Spearman. All comics that mostly portrayed Africans as inferior to the white man. But all around me were my grandfather, my father, uncles and aunts, neighbors and friends. I grew up knowing my grandfather was one of the richest men in my hometown because he had inherited a large expanse of rubber plantation from his own father. My father was the public relations manager at Texaco West Africa Ltd. Perhaps the first indigenous person to hold the position for an American company. I was barely 6 months old when my mother went to England to further her education after she graduated from the University of Ibadan with a nursing degree in 1963. I grew up in a family where education is a must. My step-mother raised me. On her lap I learned how to read and write at the age of 4. None of my siblings got married or had a child before graduating from college. The first time I had a direct interaction with a white person was when I went to the US embassy in Lagos to obtain a visa to attend Howard university in 1987. I grew up never having any significant influence by a white person. I was fortunate enough to have been taught world history from an African perspective. I grew up knowing the white man as a ravenous opportunist who plundered and ravaged other civilizations in order to survive. Whilst there may not have been comic black heroes in my flights of fancy, I had plenty real life heroes in my life. But I consider Stan Lee a brother. May his soul Rest In Peace.
