
I’m an African, atheist, asexual vegan. These four words usually never go together — atheism and Africa don’t really mix, and most people think being vegan is fundamentally unAfrican. And as far as being asexual, most people think we don’t even really exist.
I came to all of these identities differently, but fundamentally, it’s the same thing that started me down on the path, and that is the fact that I’ve never been one to subscribe to any belief system simply because it’s what I was taught. I’ve always had a hard time with people doing and believing things because it’s “what they were taught”.
I was born in Ghana to Ghanaian parents. Although I didn’t grow up in Ghana, it was always instilled in me that that was where I was from, my “home”. Being African is what led me to reject my Christian upbringing: why should I subscribe to a religion that I believed in simply because it was imposed on my ancestors by colonial powers? Why should I believe in it because my parents imposed it on me, when its tenets do not resonate with me? […]
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