As the child of immigrant Nigerian parents, Chika Oriuwa was taught early she had to do more, be much better than the competition and leave nothing to chance — because the odds were not in the favour of a little Black girl with kinky hair, African features, an ethnic name and parents who talked funny.

She had a natural affinity for science. The ability to process and understand medical concepts comes easy. And when that landed her at University of Toronto’s medical school in 2016, hello, she was the only Black medical student in the class of 259.

In Canada’s largest city, with the country’s largest Black population, in one of the world’s most diverse cities.

“It was very uncomfortable, acutely exhausting,” Oriuwa says. “I was going to be crippled or empowered by it.”

On Tuesday, Oriuwa graduates as valedictorian, the first Black woman so honoured at the school and the first woman in 14 years.

She won’t be able to walk up and collect her honours and then attend the bash her mom, Catherine, had been planning for 300 guests.

But her valedictory address is already videotaped and ready to run in the planned virtual graduation Tuesday morning.

And thanks to her stellar efforts as the face of U of T’s Black Student Application Program (BSAP), and a recruitment magnet, the graduating classes of 2022 and 2023 have 14 and 15 Blacks, respectively.

“I never want anyone to feel like I felt,” says Oriuwa, 26, days before graduation. “It’s not easy representing your race. Being the only Black person, you are acutely aware of race and identity at all times. There are these tropes people assign to you if you step out of line. It was chronic exhaustion.”

There is this thought: that one can doff or don one’s identity at will. Some appear to pull it off. Others move in and out, choosing the injustice to internalize.

Oriuwa is made to confront the challenge head on.

“I have this innate characteristic. If I see injustice, it’s hard for me to be complicit in being observant. I feel an urge to speak on it … in a way that’s productive.”

And she’s seen a lot — starting with her parents and the discrimination they faced in their professional lives and in society, even as they tried to shield their three children from its sting.

“That moulded my advocacy. I heard the stories of overt racism in Montreal, the passive words against mom and her accent, the passing comment about my hair, nose, ethnic name, the dark-skinned woman, and colourism in high school with so few Blacks pursuing sciences — just a disproportionate trajectory, so I started to question things. Pair that with my curiosity and desire to speak out and it was the perfect storm.”

That first valedictory address at Thomas Aquinas Secondary School nine years ago challenged her high school grads to go seize the world. Tuesday, she will talk about a world coloured by diversity and inclusiveness — her world, the new emerging world that her peers must see.

Oriuwa said all she ever wanted to be was a doctor — except for when she flirted with being a writer and her dad, Stephen, skillfully manoeuvred that by telling her doctors can write.

As classes ended during undergrad years at McMaster University, she and three Asian classmates went on a New York shopping trip to blow off steam before preparing to write the critical medical school admission exam MCAT. They were in great spirits approaching U.S. border security.

After the cursory questions yielded the information they were all students preparing for med school, the officer leaned forward, looked at Chika incredulously:

“Even you?” he asked.

“Well, yes.”

“Really?” the officer persisted.

“It was like he was trying to catch me in a lie. A Black woman and medicine was not possible. And I’m heightened by the realization of police violence against Black bodies. How hard do I push back? I was in an intimidating position.”

Besides, Chika would never see a Black woman doctor in the flesh until she was in her 20s.

The students drove away in eerie silence. Her classmates soon apologized for what they had just heard. The incident won’t be forgotten.

“It’s imprinted in my memory. Even thinking about it makes me emotional. I wish that border patrol officer could know where I am now, seven years later. How dare you question the aspiration and dream I have had for 17 years? It’s there, the hurt and alienation, right under the surface.

“So, advocacy, for me, is a form of self-preservation. I’m writing my own narrative. My wanting to get into medicine was an improbability. So, it stoked the flames. Of the persons in the car, I was the first to enter med school.”

It’s not that academics came easy for Oriuwa. She likes learning, but not in a nerdy way. Not that there is a problem with that reality.

“I never ever not tried. And because I tried so hard, I can’t say I just rode my natural ability. I have confidence that I am a smart young woman. But I won’t rest on my laurels. I want to be known as someone who is driven — intellectually, professionally. I’m very, very keen.”

She was also very, very disappointed when she arrived at U of T to find they had a Black Medical Students Association, but no Black students.

The university had a summer mentorship program for prospective medical students, in conjunction with community groups, the Black Physicians Association of Ontario and its own Black students.

But they needed a catalyst.

Oriuwa was what the doctors ordered.

“She’s an icon to so many, here and abroad,” said Ike Okafor, who heads the BSAP. “She was intensive, the public face of that program, and was on television, before the provincial task force, and handled numerous correspondences.

“She made us really proud.”

Some study medicine intent on cutting open bodies to perform improbable surgeries. Oriuwa has other designs, such as reconstructing minds, repairing the damage of institutional racism, making her people whole again.

This is the world of Trayvon Martin, Minnesota’s George Floyd and countless others Black bodies sacrificed on the altar of endemic, institutionalized racism; it’s a reality confronted by Black Lives Matter, football player Colin Kaepernick and others.

So Oriuwa settled on psychiatric medicine that “allows me to have close connection with my community and continue the advocacy and outreach within my community.”

While most graduates were concentrating on preparation for their licensing exams, Oriuwa couldn’t shake the latest assault on a Black body in the U.S.

“I’m affected when someone is murdered mercilessly in the U.S.

“That could be my brother; could be me.

“In predominantly white spaces, where you encounter racism, they don’t care if I’m a doctor. That’s why I align myself so strongly. It’s hard to understand unless you are part of a community that experiences violence and can’t carry on your normal day because of pervasive trauma of anti-Black violence.”

Put another way, the “demonstration of the deleterious effect of compounded institutional discrimination and intersectional oppression,” gets you down so you sit and grieve instead of studying for your doctor’s licence exam needed to start your residency.

“There is this misconception that even I had — that when I reach a certain level of professional competence and respect I can shed my skin, in some way. They won’t see me as Black. They will see me as a doctor.

“No, no, no. There is no escaping.”

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2020/05/28/the-only-black-medical-student-in-a-u-of-t-class-of-259-chika-oriuwa-graduates-as-valedictorian.html

We proud baby

Nigerians are resilient, thriving all around the world, partly because of where we're coming from. Congratulations ada nne.

Ada Amaka kudos