Summary

In "Colonial Mentality," when Nadia was 7, her father took her and Yasmeen to Kumasi, Ghana. While there, they visited "the stool house of the Oyoko clan" (61). Throughout the trip, Osei and Anabel had fought. His family did not like Anabel. Nadia and Yasmeen worried their marriage would fail.

During the stool house visit, Nadia and Yasmeen were bored. Nadia did not understand how and why her ancestors' spirits were supposedly inside the stools (64). When Osei told Nadia she was "a descendant of royalty," but his father had given up his title, she was disappointed (65). The girls were restless throughout the guide's speech. Osei told them they were acting "bush," or "uncivilized, wild, uncouth" (67). Now, Nadia sees her father's embarrassment over their behavior as a sign of "colonial mentality...the idea that people who have been colonized, marginalized, and enslaved feel themselves inferior to...