Trump-Boakai ‘Such Good English’ Encounter: When Compliments Come Dressed in Colonial Underwear

By Chris Agbedo

There are compliments, and then there are colonial microaggressions dressed in syrup. Indeed, the ‘compliments’ came draped in colonial ‘dross’ (Nwafor pant) when President Donald Trump recently praised Liberian President Joseph Boakai’s command of English: “Such good English, it’s beautiful. Where did you learn to speak so beautifully?” The room reportedly smiled. But many Africans, particularly Liberians, didn’t. Because somewhere between the applause and the awkward chuckle was the unmistakable echo of Rudyard Kipling whispering, “the white man’s burden.”

What the world witnessed at the White House was not diplomacy. It was accidental anthropology by a man perpetually surprised that Black people can conjugate verbs. And what Trump likely imagined was an uplifting toast to linguistic excellence came across to many as a veiled slur — an intellectual pat on the head served over a meal of ignorance flambé.

Let us not pretend this is new. Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu taught us that language is more than communication; it is symbolic power. And in colonial systems, English was weaponized as both ladder and leash. If you spoke “properly,” you were “civilized.” If not, you were fodder for missionary shame and imperial reform. That’s why Trump’s “compliment” stung like a slap dipped in Vaseline. It resurrected a long and tired colonial performance in which the African must forever audition for approval, enunciate to be human, and “speak well” to escape the mental village the West assumes he never left.

But let’s pause momentarily and rewind a bit. Liberia, lest Mr. Trump forgot during his crash-course in ethnocentric diplomacy, is not merely an African country that happens to speak English. It is a country founded by freed American slaves, people who carried English in their mouths and trauma in their bones across the Atlantic. Liberia’s official language is English. And if Trump had spent five minutes on Wikipedia instead of fifteen minutes marveling at Boakai’s fluency, he might have realized he was essentially asking a Bostonian where he learned to pronounce the word “coffee.”

“I have people at this table who can’t speak nearly as well,” Trump added. This may be the first time in modern history that a racial microaggression came with a humblebrag about the communicative incompetence of one’s own cabinet. But again, this is the man who believes intelligence can be detected by accent and that world diplomacy is a reality TV show hosted in English, preferably at a 6th-grade level.

To understand the absurdity of it all, imagine Joe Boakai visiting Iowa and telling a Trump-supporting farmer: “You speak such good English. Where did you learn that? In your barn?” He would be burned at the rhetorical stake for “insulting ordinary Americans.” But when the roles are reversed, it’s “just a compliment.” Thus, we see the psychological double standard that thrives in post-colonial validation economies. Africans are expected to be eternally grateful for being mistaken as competent.

What is even most insulting, though, is not even the question; it is the expectation that the African must receive the insult with a grin and a thank-you note. A South African politician asked why Boakai didn’t just walk out. But walking out would have instantly been rebranded as “African hypersensitivity.” Staying, of course, becomes “tacit approval.” It is a lose-lose diplomacy waltz choreographed by privilege and crass ignorance.

Philosopher Frantz Fanon once wrote: “The colonized is elevated above his jungle status in proportion to his adoption of the mother country’s cultural standards.” What Trump said, whether he knows it or not, is rooted in that small Fanonian universe. The English language, in his worldview, is not a neutral tool. It is a marker of Western legitimacy, and whoever masters it is not an equal, but a pleasant surprise!

And let us spare a moment for the White House Press Office, which promptly defended the remark as a “heartfelt compliment.” Perhaps, it is the same way one might say, “You don’t sweat much for a fat person.” They even had the temerity to claim Africa has “never had such a friend in the White House.” One must assume they define friendship as the kind that sends unsolicited language report cards and recalls Haiti, Nigeria, and the African continent collectively as “shithole countries.”

This is not about being offended on behalf of a continent. Not all. Africa, as a continent, has survived slave ships, missionaries, colonial governors, Bretton Woods’ structural adjustments, and Davos panels. It can certainly survive Trump. What it cannot survive is the normalization of ignorant paternalism wrapped in gilded ignorance; yes, that dangerous assumption that Africans are still forever arriving, never arrived.

In closing, perhaps President Trump meant well. Perhaps, he genuinely believes English proficiency is a badge of honour in global diplomacy. But what he really revealed is his ongoing bewilderment that leadership, intellect, and Blackness can co-exist without a Western sponsor.

Maybe next time, Mr. Trump should take a trip to Monrovia, not to inspect their English, but to finally learn some history. Because while Africa may still suffer the aftershocks of colonization, it no longer owes anyone an explanation for being articulate in a language it was never meant to forget.

As James Baldwin noted, “It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.” And in Trump’s case, that innocence is not just naïve. It is damn aggressively incurious. Next time, I will invite Mr Trump over to have a taste of my own variety of Ezikeọba English. Ke m jé bịa (Let me go and come.)

Yeye dey smell!

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