When We Police Our Own Smallness: How Africa Responds to Its True Size
The Map and the Mirror
A post circulates by Yemi Africa showing Africa's true size. The continent that can fit the U.S., China, India, Japan, and most of Europe inside it with room to spare is finally shown at scale. The Mercator projection, which shrunk Africa on world maps for generations, is corrected. Africa, the only continent in all four hemispheres is revealed as literally the center of the world.
The responses from Africans themselves are devastating:
"Made smaller... and so what? Let's pay attention to something else, rather than this petty thing about big and tiny."
"This topic won't change anything at all."
When someone points out that Africa is the geographic center: "Unfortunately its economic irrelevance makes it the outer edge."
Another writes: "New York state alone has the same wealth as the entire continent of Africa."
Someone dismisses with contempt: "It's still just mud and huts."
The Violence of "So What?"
Meanwhile, Trump renames the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America on his first day back in office, and it's immediately on maps. He understands that symbols matter, names matter, how we appear matters. But when Africa wants its actual size acknowledged after centuries of deliberate shrinking, Africans themselves call it "petty."
There's a Gikuyu proverb from my native tribe: "Ndugietwo ngui na weete ngui" you cannot be called a dog and call yourself a dog too. Yet here we are, participating in our own diminishment.
The insult was never meant to be repeated, yet we echo it and make it ours. That’s how erasure works: not only when others belittle us, but when we join in the chorus. The ancestors must be turning in their graves. They warned us with truths like this, gave us language as a shield, and still we lay it down.
I recognize this pattern in myself. I wrote The Money Shadow Workbook about worth wounds and how we measure ourselves. When it didn't bring the financial returns I expected, I caught myself saying "so what? Maybe it doesn't matter." My own colonized mind dismissing what I birthed because I measured it by profit instead of truth.
The Metrics That Diminish
Notice how quickly the conversation shifts from geography to GDP. The moment Africa's physical reality is acknowledged, the measurement immediately changes to one where Africa "loses."
"Russia is bigger but not wealthy, so size doesn't matter."
"We have different languages and cultures"as if Europe doesn't, as if diversity makes unity impossible.
This reflexive shift reveals the wound: we've internalized that only economic productivity determines worth. Land doesn't matter. Resources don't matter. Geographic centrality doesn't matter. Only the colonizer's definition of development counts.
The irony cuts deep: Japan sets aside entire cities for African labor. Other continents recognize how essential Africans are: our bodies, our resources, our work. We're necessary but not respected. Central to their economies but peripheral to their maps. They need us while telling us we're irrelevant.
When We Enforce Our Own Lie
The deepest cut comes from watching Africans rush to minimize what was already minimized. "Let's focus on ourselves not how we are perceived," writes one, as if being literally shrunk on every world map is just "perception."
Another exhaustedly writes about African unity: "I know you will never believe me." The fatigue in that comment—trying to maintain hope among people trained to see their own potential as impossible.
This is colonization's final victory: when you no longer need a colonizer to diminish you. You'll do it yourself, call it wisdom, and shame anyone who suggests you deserve accurate representation.
The Living Question
What would it mean to measure ourselves by truth instead of GDP? To hold our actual size without apologizing? To stop saying "so what?" when our own bigness is revealed?
The tragedy isn't that the Mercator projection shrunk Africa. The tragedy is that when shown our true size, we shrink ourselves. We perform the wound. We say: even truth about ourselves isn't worth defending.
The path back for Africa, for me, for all of us is the same: refusing to perform smallness, even when it feels safer. Refusing to be called a dog when we know we are not.
This is the work: unlearning metrics that were never meant to measure us, reclaiming the size that was always ours, and refusing to participate in our own diminishment, even when our own people tell us that accurate representation is a waste of time.
Note: The comments quoted are from actual responses to posts about Africa's true geographic size. They reflect not individual failings but collective wounds that deserve witnessing.
P.S. The same wound that makes us say "so what?" to Africa's true size is the wound that makes us diminish our own worth. I'm working through The Money Shadow Workbook again because these patterns of self-shrinking run deep. The voice that says "Africa is big but poor so it doesn't matter" is the same voice that says "your work doesn't count unless it makes money."
If you're ready to examine how you police your own size and worth, here's the Amazon link to the workbook. If you're in Kenya, message me and I'll connect you to where you can get a copy locally.
And if you want to practice refusing smallness in community, join my Shadow Work Community on WhatsApp. We're learning to measure ourselves by truth, not by metrics designed to diminish us.
About Nyambura
Nyambura is a spiritual technologist exploring the intersection of ancient wisdom and modern transformation. She creates AI-powered wellness tools for shadow work and spiritual reckoning, writes about consciousness in the digital age, and helps others navigate the paradox of healing in a world obsessed with optimization.
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