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First, your disappointment is not my cup of tea. Neither is the discomfort of you or your fellow travellers at having your bigotry called what it is. A spade remains a spade, even when the people wielding it would rather we called it cultural preservation. As for my supposed silence on the disparagement of Yorùbá women and the appropriation of Yorùbá heritage, if you have not encountered my contributions in those areas, that is hardly my problem. People choose what they see, what they ignore, and what they remember. I am not obliged to submit an inventory of my convictions to earn the right to express another. Again, I do not do what I do for your validation. Now, to the substance of your argument. Nobody said Yorùbá people should abandon their cultural identity. Nobody said ethnic consciousness is inherently wrong. The question is why a Yorùbá man marrying a woman from Britain or New York is apparently less threatening to some cultural custodians than that same man marrying an Igbo woman from Enugu. If your concern is genuinely cultural continuity, why does geographical distance seem more tolerable than ethnic difference within the same country? You cannot evade it by changing the subject. And honestly, where are all these erase and replace, survival or extinction, and existential-threat talking points coming from? Why are we importing American right-wing rhetoric into a Nigerian context that does not map neatly onto theirs? We are talking about one of the largest ethnic groups in Nigeria, one of the most urbanised ethnic populations in West Africa, with a substantial diaspora. What exactly are we so terrified of losing, and to whom? At what point does cultural preservation become an excuse for manufacturing enemies? Yes, other ethnic groups have their prejudices, their interests, and their anxieties about cultural survival. So what? If a Hausa man is hostile to an Igbo woman, criticise him. If an Igbo family rejects a Yorùbá son-in-law out of ethnic chauvinism, criticise them too. But the existence of bigotry elsewhere does not absolve anyone of the bigotry here. Other people behaving badly is not a moral defence. Preserve the language. Teach the history. Practise the traditions. Pass on the names, the philosophy, the art. Do the work. But if the survival of Yorùbá culture depends on whom a Yorùbá man is permitted to marry, perhaps we should be asking uncomfortable questions about the strength of the culture we claim to be defending. You invoked idealism versus realism as though understanding the realities of Nigeria requires us to surrender to them. It doesn't. Understanding why ethnic prejudice exists is not the same as legitimising it. We can acknowledge Nigeria's tribal politics without reproducing its worst instincts in our private lives. Finally, my being a beneficiary of Yorùbá culture is precisely why I reserve the right to interrogate what is done in its name. I write Yorùbá literature, work with Yorùbá oral traditions, and dedicate my practice to expanding the possibilities of our cultural expression. I do not need to turn my cultural identity into an instrument of hostility to prove my commitment to it. A culture that can survive only by policing love and treating its neighbours as existential threats is not demonstrating strength. It is advertising fear. And no amount of cultural rhetoric can make fear look like wisdom. Ire o.