Division among African Americans and African immigrants or those living on the continent are real. It stems primarily from a lack of understanding and awareness of each other’s lived experiences. My guest, Fotsani Dogani shares her experience as an African immigrant living in America.
Fatsani Dogani is a nurse, published author, entrepreneur, speaker, healthcare consultant, and also considers herself a global citizen. Born in Malawi and now based in California Fatsani was blessed with the opportunity to live in Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, and the United Kingdom.
Fatsani is an award-winning clinician who currently works as a clinical lead in a critical care unit in one of the major hospitals in San Diego. Fatsani is also growing her healthcare consultancy business. Fatsani considers herself a lifelong learner, Fatsani studied Nursing at the University of Surrey (UK) she has a Masters’s in Public Health from the University of Leeds (UK) and a Doctorate in Public Health (Epidemiology) from Walden University. She recently completed a Life Coaching Certification as it is also a desire of hers to encourage and empower women to live intentional lives.
As a self-professed global citizen Fatsani goes by the adage that our experiences shape our opinions and it is only through opening ourselves up to our biases that we can create the opportunities for discourse that can help us forge ahead as a society. She admits her own biased opinions about African American people were acquired through her own misguided misconceptions. Watching the Netflix Documentary 13th provided her with a different lens through which to view her fellow black man/woman. Having a black husband and two black sons living in America has also given her a different way of viewing the lived American experience.
Show Notes
The African American experience and the African immigrant experience are not the same. Comparing them with this mindset is often born out of ignorance. But when you have an eye-opening experience in understanding the history of a people, you can have more empathy, compassion, and understanding of their journey. Seek to understand, don’t compare your story to another person’s story, share what you learn with others, and stay open to learning.
Snippet from Fatsani:
I think that exposure and that knowledge that I can seek out better opportunities and always knowing that I’m running towards something better was where my experience came from. Whereas the African American people don’t necessarily have the same opportunities, in a way, they can’t just decide to do what they want because the systems are not set up to support them. Learning that and knowing that my experience and their experiences were different helped me. So I can’t judge it the same way with that judgment and lack of understanding of why the situation was the way that it was. And I think it’s a great opportunity for dialogue because I think if we all share our different experiences, we can learn from each other and that’s why it’s, it’s a different way of living.
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Produced by Breadfruit Media
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