“IT’S HARD TO REMEMBER WHAT WAS WHAT SOMETIMES – EVEN WHAT I NOTED IN DIARIES WAS PART FACT, PRIMARILY FIBS”

My childhood memories tend to blur, largely because of my propensity for fudging the truth as a child. It’s hard to remember what was what sometimes – even what I noted in diaries was part fact, primarily fibs. The childhood anecdotes I scrawled consisted of the sleepovers I hadn’t been allowed to attend, like some kind of alternate reality where my strict Nigerian parents were far more laid-back. I’d spend Sundays at church being told specifically not to lie and then, come Monday morning, spin the answer to the question, “How did you spend your weekend?” into a fabulous funday. Prayer in church pews became a trip to a petting zoo, puffy and frilled “Sunday best” mutated into an outfit fresh from a Mis-teeq video. I didn’t just stick to white lies by any means: mine were a whole rainbow of untruths.

When I was five, I told my little sister the reason the concoction of rainwater, lavender and leaves we mixed in a bucket in our garden had disappeared the next day was because fairies from our shed had drank it, making tiny straws out of blades of grass. I hadn’t yet learned what evaporation was, but I knew what I was telling her was a crock of shit. Like most children, I soon tired of imaginary things and became far more fixated on reality.

Fast-forward several years and porkies were replaced by harsh realities. But telling the truth as an adult has brought its own problems. Telling friends what I think of a new boyfriend or a life-changing decision has often seen me on the receiving end of sarcastic “Wow, tell us how you really feel” type comments from those who really wish I hadn’t. Honesty, while honourable, moral and inherently right, is not always easy.

This has been nowhere more evident than with writing. Articles about the truth – uncomfortable truths – have never been as easy to write as simply penning whatever it is people want to hear. Pieces on white supremacy and sexism, and how the two combined create a doubly crippling cocktail of fuckery, have won me more enemies than friends on the internet. I’ve been bombarded with racial slurs and insults, and I’ve

been trolled on Twitter in a way I could have avoided had I said these problems no longer existed. But that would be lying. And while it may be cute at five, 20 years later, one would like to think the truth can’t be too difficult to tell nor too difficult to hear. However, as the horrifically prejudiced, offensive comments section on just about any article calling out racism prove, for many, the truth is something they can’t handle.

That’s the thing about lying: it’s easier for all involved. It requires no skill, no hard work and, most of all, no courage. It’s why we do it so much as children – it’s lazy, it’s a shortcut and one that often avoids the discomfort of both parties involved. The recent boom in fake news and post-truth politics proves it: people would rather be coddled with lies than confronted with facts.

I look back and laugh at my childhood fabrications, but the stakes of a cheeky child trying to lie their way out of homework are far lower than the ones we currently face. With ever-increasing xenophobia, the truth is uglier and more unpopular than ever, which means there’s all the more need to tell it. Deceptive, scapegoating articles must be combated with the facts. The terrifying fallout from the lies is far worse than the consequences of the truth, as scary as they can be. The truth right now isn’t simply noble – it’s needed.