November 4, 2008 will go down in history as one of the most transformative dates in world history in my opinion. The people of the United States of America elected Barack Hussein Obama to be their next president. The image I will remember the most from that night will be seeing the split screen on CNN of the celebration in Harlem, New York and Nairobi, Kenya. It seemed that if only for one moment in time, the black race was unified and jubilant as one body. As America has been grappling with whether we are living in a post-racial society or not, Pres. Obama quietly has changed the dynamics of the long-held view of what it means to be black. The black American community had to come to terms with the fact that the first black president of the U.S. didn't come from a slave lineage. It was strange seeing black Americans have all this love for the Obamas while some black folks still had their issues with Africans. Even as Dr. Ben Carson's comments from earlier this year where he had questioned Obama's blackness was quickly dismissed by most black folks, it unearthed some rumblings that were lying beneath the surface. There are pockets within the black community who feel that President Obama didn’t have the "real" black American experience as he was growing up. I have also passively heard folks say that his wife, Michelle, really made him into a black man. For first generation Nigerian-Americans like myself, it reminded me of the three ring juggling act that we deal with on a daily basis. We have to be accepted by mainstream white society, while still being down for the cause with our black American brothers and sisters, along with trying to maintain our Nigerian heritage as well. Unfortunately, the media only writes stories around the narrative of African immigrants, in particular Nigerians, as being the most educated racial/ethnic group in this country. As much as I love and appreciate that statistic, it at times seems to restrict us into a very narrow purview. We have a culture to go along with all of our degrees as well. As for Nigerians, we love our jollof rice, rice and stew, and farina with egusi soup. We usually make it rain with dollar bills on our brides and grooms while dancing to the tunes of P-Square’s No One Like You, which is the official wedding song for Nigerians.I almost forgot to throw in Nollywood, which ranks second to India's Bollywood in terms of movies made in the whole world, according to Fortune Magazine. Is the acting always good in every movie? The answer is no. But it is entertaining and makes us laugh for the most part. My point is that Africans are shifting the conversation about blackness which might be uncomfortable for most black Americans to wrap their heads around. But in the end of the day, the black immigrant population is growing at a very fast rate in the U.S. Right now, the black immigrant population is at 9% of the total black population, according to the Pew Research Center's report in 2015. The same report states that by the year 2060, that number will rise close to 20% of the black population in this country. So whether folks like it or not, the way we constitute blackness in this country will be different in the not too distant future.