One of the biggest lies Dutch folks tell themselves, is that they're "direct." They aren't. Not by a country mile. When you have Dutch folks as colleagues, neighbours, or even friends, you quickly learn that they aren't as direct as they like to think. At the workplace, when Dutch folks have a problem with you, or something you did, they'd rather whisper behind your back than share actual feedback with you. The Dutch don't have a feedback culture, they have a complain culture. Complaining, for some reason, makes them feel good.

One of the funniest things has to be when Nigerians who just emigrated to the Netherlands, come to find out that there are people who have been in relationships for years, are super happy, UNMARRIED, and are also not even considering getting married. At my former job, one of my Nigerian colleagues was super perplexed by this. He thought it was so strange. Dude said he couldn't fathom how people would be in relationships, looking so fulfilled and happy, and were neither married nor even considering the possibility of marriage.

@TheEconomist: "The French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, secured a promise from 75 food producers to cut their prices. Food prices in France rose by 14.1% in the 12 months to May."

It is important to understand this piece of news from The Economist. If the French finance minister can secure a promise from food producers to reduce their prices, then it's very possible for the same food producers to reduce prices without being forced into it. This is one of the reasons why I hate cutthroat capitalism and corporate greed.

The Netherlands, a country of 16 million people, whose universities only gained any kind of recognition in the world (and started bringing in foreign exchange) because they started offering lots of courses in English, is about to take a populist step and drastically reduce ...

https://twitter.com/DSchindlerEcon/status/1670007433060556805

... English courses in universities, in order to halt the "internationalising" of its universities. Mind you, foreign students from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas, etc, are mostly the main reason why most so-called "popular" Dutch universities are able to rake in cash and ...

If there's one thing I love about my weekly (long) telephone calls with my grandma in Nigeria, it's that she often points out how much I've changed. She thinks I've grown so much over the years and that I also get wiser each year. A little bit of context: I didn't have a very pleasant childhood, and as a result, my grandparents did most of raising me. The rest I had to do for myself. And in the process of raising yourself, you often develop hyper independence.

One of my Dutch neighbours used to ask that I babysit her kids whenever she had to do something on short notice. And if I wasn't busy with anything, I honestly didn't mind. They're great kids and it was always such a pleasure spending time with them. For the few hours both kids (4 and 6 years old) got to spend with me, we'd go to the arcade, get some ice cream, and go feed some animals in a petting farm not far from my house. Then we'd play games on my Nintendo Wii and also read some books I bought for my younger cousins.

Told my neighbours that I learn so much from observing them. And that much of what I talk about on social media is based on what I have learned from them. There's so much of their experiences that are teachable moments; good, bad, or grey, and it's so nice trying to see how ... ... they navigate the pleasant moments, messes, heartbreaks, etc. Humans are quite interesting and complex beings and if you're an ardent fan of storytelling, just be a people watcher. There's so much you'd see if you stop for a moment to pay closer attention.

It's high time we (men) had a conversation about how we've created this culture where being "masculine" or "manly" requires us to suppress our emotions, never talk about our feelings, and even go as far as making fun of men who dare to show emotions and talk about their feelings.

https://twitter.com/fspthedon/status/1669526950447136769

There are men in the mentions playing the "victim" and making it look like this world where men are desperately lonely, suddenly just came into being on its own. For centuries, men like us have defined what "masculinity" is, and we've often come up with toxic definitions.

At the barbershop and some African men started a discussion about how it's an "abomination" that some women don't take their husbands' surnames when they get married. Funnily, this isn't the first time I'm witnessing such a discussion at the same barbershop. One of them asked my opinion and I told him that a woman has every right to keep her surname and not take her husband's, after getting married. It's not, and shouldn't be a must, and also, women have every right to start a discussion about the man taking her own surname.

Lool. There's a group of young married African ladies I met in Amsterdam yesterday, trying to convince another lady in their neighborhood that she needs to leave her husband. Reason why? Because this lady and her husband decided to open up their marriage. This group of African ladies are religious, and they're trying to convince this young lady that marriage is "between a man and a woman", and that having an open marriage is not to the "glory of god", and bla bla bla.

It's so sad when I see people who are doing well in their daily lives, making progress (albeit small) despite being born without a silver spoon, comparing themselves to people who are currently successful and existing in a whole different life circumstance. I really wish folks would stop comparing themselves to others. Yes, maybe others are celebrating right now, but it doesn't mean you won't celebrate your own successes in the future. You will.

Someone once invited me to a space filled with (African) religious feminists. It was just a group of ladies claiming to be "feminists", while shaming sex workers and women who've had abortions. For religious feminists, you do not really deserve rights, as a woman, if you're a ... ... sex worker, don't subscribe to purity culture, dress "provocatively", have "committed" (yeah, "committed", as in, murder) abortion, are queer, etc. The levels to their feminism always stop somewhere. E.g. while some may "tolerate" gays, they may not tolerate trans folks.

When you start talking to a African woman, and she starts talking about how she's "submissive" and "prayerful", and I'm like, "Yup! That's my cue to exit the chat!! Go look for your patriarchal slave master elsewhere. I want a feminist witch, with a broomstick and a pointy hat." The worst is when you meet those Nigerian women who claim to be "religious feminists", lool. Yeah, I know. Such an oxymoron. And then they keep saying things like, "In a relationship, the women should submit to the men, as long as the men are worth submitting to." Lool.

One of my best friends left the Netherlands, some years ago, and moved back to Nigeria. He now lives in Lagos with his fam. So whenever I visit Lagos, he likes to show me around. And high-end bars and restaurants are often the most popular places he takes me to. His friends always like to tag along, and I often find that observing and asking them questions is always a good way to learn more about them, and life, in Nigeria. We're all in the same age bracket (late 20s and early 30s) and all of them, except me, are married and have kids.

One of these days, I'm gonna write a really long and detailed thread on here, about a conversation I had with my grandpa just before he died. We were discussing Jim Crow, and he said that desegregation was one of the worst things to ever happen to black folks in the US. While he didn't like segregation, he did comment on how it forced black folks to be more of a community, a socialised entity where the "it takes a village" mentality was the order of the day. Folks helped each other more, and communal cooperation was very popular.

Dating.

It's now become a hotbed of bigotry disguised as "preferences." Whether it's racism, sexism, misogyny, fatphobia, body shaming, colourism, religious intolerance, etc., people now take whatever toxicities they've been socialised with (from home), into the dating scene.

https://twitter.com/SjamaanN/status/1614609073680568320

More and more people are starting to accept the possibility that they may never find someone they truly connect with. The basis for relationships these days, are so shallow. You think you've seen everything there is to see on a first date, someone just appears and shocks you!

This reminds me of the story a colleague once told me of how his marriage of 12 years ended. This story often leaves me perplexed, scared, and frankly, annoyed. And yes, I'm not forgetting this for as long as I live.

Thread.

https://twitter.com/Tejumola__/status/1531275096614117378

So dude was Dutch-Surinamese and met this American lady in Amsterdam at a protest. He said she was irreligious at the time, super progressive, and wasn't into going to church and all that stuff. Being that he was an atheist, these were some of the things he wanted in a partner.

@BBCNews: 'Graduates from the world's top universities will be able to come to the UK regardless of where they were born, without needing a job.'

The UK government says the "high potential individual" route will attract the "brightest and best" early in their careers. The scheme will be available to alumni of the top non-UK universities who graduated in the past five years.

Graduates will be eligible regardless of where they were born and will not need a job offer in order to apply.

Is it just me or is this just another elitist decision?

Every time you're in the company of white people, and they meet someone from Mongolia, they immediately try making them feel guilty and apologise for Chinggis Khan (Genghis Khan). Yeah, I don't let white people do that! Not while I'm there! Hell no!! You can't be cool with all of the roman empire's atrocities, or Alexander of Macedon's unnecessary violence and war crimes and then wanna make it look like Chinggis Khan was the devil. You can't be okay with what the British empire did and then be outraged at Chinggis Khan.

You ever been around married Nigerian men? And I'm talking about the very religious and conservative ones. Notice how they chase women with such desperation, it's almost like their lives depend on them cheating on their wives. I used to be friends with this dude in Lagos, and whenever I visited, he'd wanna take me out, show me a good time. And he'd often bring a couple of his friends, all married as well. Now, as married men, you'd expect that all they'd wanna do would be just going out for drinks.

@CNN: "For weeks human rights advocates and reporters who've documented the treatment of refugees in Europe have noted how many countries rolling out the welcome mat for Ukrainians have been indifferent at best, and hostile at worst, to Syrian refugees and others seeking safety. Groups of Ukrainian families at the US-Mexico border are getting the chance to do something most asylum-seeking migrants haven't been allowed to do for years: cross legally into the United States. A memo obtained by CNN instructs officers at the border to consider exempting ...