When I say “one’s people”, I mean it generally. Yes, I have no relatives of southern African descent (that I know of), but it still hurts me when I hear of what southern Africans have been through. I think what personalizes it for me is the simple fact that, at face value, all these crimes were perpetrated against them due to their melanin-wealth. And that if I had been here at that time, I would have had the exact same thing happen to me. It wouldn’t have mattered what I could do… as long as my skin was rich in melanin, I would have been relegated to a certain status and lifestyle.
It must come from a very primal place, this identifying with other melanin-rich people, because I honestly cannot explain it logically. And to all those who would wish to fault my feelings ‘cause I can’t find logic to fit them, I’d like to remind you that humans are still very much the animal. Just because we rose onto our hind legs, came up with more options of doing it (than just doggy style), and claim to have higher cerebral functions… doesn’t mean we are removed at all from our animal instinct. I remember something from bio class… how do ants know what path to follow, what message is sent so that they crowd around a few crystals of sugar in a matter of minutes? The answer involves scent… those scouting ants emit a certain scent and others recognize it as one of their own. Later on, in a bus full of white students… I start to believe that there really is a racial signature-scent (now I think it has to do with your diet). I latch onto this notion and go to town on deos… don’t they smell more like white people than like me? What about elastoplast … why does it have to be that color? As a result, when I can, I buy the ones with sparkles and cartoon figures… remnant of my waxed and waned negritude .
At some point I decide that a despotic ruler (mobutu and idi included) is better than a racist ruler. Ridiculous, I know. From the same stable as “are people in Kenyan slums more or less poor than those in South African informal settlements?” But in my mind it makes sense (former, not the latter)… it irks me that something as obvious as my skin (as opposed to more intangible things like my ethnicity or religious affiliation) is used to single me out for punishment… it just suggests an intellectual laziness, a very broad brush that can only be borne of an inferiority complex, or “issues” as we call them in modern-day speak. I read dr. francis cress welsing’s ‘isis papers’ and she articulately gives voice to many questions and thoughts I have around this.
But wait… what if the broad brush were to recognize my individual “worthiness”? What if I was hailed as intelligent, learned, worthy to stand among “them”? Would my reading of the situation change at all? Not really, because, as I’ve already pointed out, there’s a primal instinct to identify with “my kind”. I encounter work that describes the state of black South Africans who find themselves at a game lodge (and by extension, all Africans on this continent… after all, when we go coast, or do Lewa or the Mara, aren’t we faced with these ambiguities and discomforts?):
Game lodges invariably reference colonial trappings in their design and décor, creating an experience for most tourists that evokes the great white hunter days of Hemingway, Roosevelt and the film, ‘White Mischief’. They are fantasies of imperial pasts made possible by an extremely high level of service provided by, inevitably, black staff, and the protected, pristine environment made possible by a colonial history of land grabbing. Side by side with traditional Zulu dancers or Ndebele artists, it is hard to imagine what black South Africans experience in such tourist zones. Ndebele describes the experience of the black tourist at a game lodge thus:
“Being there, they experience the most damning ambiguities. They see the faceless black workers and instinctively see a reflection of themselves. They may be wealthy or politically powerful, but at that moment they are made aware of their special kind of powerlessness: they lack the backing of cultural power. They experience cultural domination in a most intimate way. Especially when they go game viewing. It is difficult not to feel that, in the total scheme of things, perhaps they should be out there with the animals, being viewed” (Ndebele, 1998).
...[we] cannot be successful in attracting overseas tourists to their fantasy of a colonial luxury and environmental emptiness while purporting to attract the people whose lives had to be erased in order to create the fantasy.
So no, being accepted into the fold as an exceptional African does not cut it. It does not assuage my discomfort… but that’s what I am here… a ‘comfortable’ black, unburdened by the particular historic baggage that plagues this country.
But that’s only part of it, because on the other hand, I’ve been taught that I should be submissive in order to ‘get there’, to ‘get mine’, not rock the boat because ‘you’re getting good money/experience/status’, ‘this country contributes 50% of Africa’s GDP, so just by virtue of being here, you can get a piece of that action’.
So how do I stop myself from taking this history personal?
In many ways I suppose it’s great that Kenya didn’t have a truth and reconciliation commission, that we don’t have a museum that shows us what atrocities were committed against us by outsiders and insiders… Can you imagine the level of angst that we’d have to deal with… on top of the daily casual injustices? Maybe that’s why we can afford to morph into those ‘exceptional’ Africans who want to ‘just all get along’ … because we forget, or never even knew, what ailed our parents and their parents before them, we can’t identify the wounds that have been inflicted upon us by history… we imagine that by putting our best foot forward, by “assuming” the problems, the subtle racism, the calls to “get over it”, we’ll get to the promised land. Yes I have that Oprah (and many other civil rights movement) quote that “excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism”, even so, (most of) those civil rights movement folk stayed focused on the lessons of history, never hesitating to invoke them.
I find I cannot stop myself from taking it personal… the treatment of “my people”… history makes me Mulder to your Scully… trusting no one, but always wanting to believe! that goodness is out there, and sometimes, wondering where the heck Scotty is, 'cause I’m tired of this too much thinking. Better to just suck it up, be a woman! and return to unconscious living. Until the next episode that crosses my threshold levels for racist and assimilado manure.
So back to “my people”: things that touch raw nerves still: slavery (of course)… the fact that our bones are lining the floor of the atlantic and indian oceans, the Tuskegee experiment, and myriad others… not to mention so called donors and technical assistants, the mis and undereducation of black South Africans, the unrepentant-ness of white (south) Africans… haven’t you heard archbishop tutu say that he feels white south Africans do not appreciate the degree to which blacks have pinched themselves in order to make them comfortable? At work, in all walks of life, the blacks always seem inarticulate, passive… but they’re not. They’re essentially presenting the “black mask”, impassivity… you feel you’re right? Fine! You’ll get no input from me, so let’s see how long you can continue your soliloquy. So everyone speaks for them (yours truly included)… but they’re the only ones who know what’s truly going on. Why else would HIV/AIDS continue to spread?
How does one not take history personal? How do I look at the world through rose-tinted glasses, instead of scowling at every white person I encounter, especially one whose behavior I may construe, for whatever reason, as implying that I’m inferior, when I am at the very least, an equal. Ahaaa…of course! I must make a point of de-learning history. Stick with the party line: “we were and had nothing in the past and it’s a good thing the missionaries came to Africa, out of the goodness of their hearts, to spread the good news and civilize us”. For if I go on learning about what was done to “my people”, the ignominy we have and continue to suffer, how long will I last? Won’t I go mad? So, in the interest of sanity, of being able to go through the day without “thinking too much”, or “asking too many questions”, I choose to stop learning any more about this country’s past. It just hurts too much. As soon as any history tries to cross the barrier, it’s rejected outright… Do I get less bitter? Sadly, no. Because I have already drunk from the well… but I do manage to coax my mind into swallowing and moving on, turning the other cheek, or a blind eye. How else does one live in a society where the racial fight is ongoing every second? Perhaps if I didn’t take it so personal… if I became a peace-lover, invited everyone in for a group hug… perhaps then, I’d understand that we can all get along.
It is in this spirit of seeking the group hug that I accept a dinner invitation from a white friend. At dinner, there are only two melanin-rich people in a group of ten, and we have great conversation about life in general, what we’re going through… just straight up, human conversation about people within our age group… later as the group gets smaller, the conversation wanders to ear plugs. Someone complains about noise in their neighborhood (telling about the age group, isn’t it?) and this woman gives her the solution in one word: earplugs. She then relates how ear plugs rescued her… this Ugandan doctor moves into her neighborhood, a month later he has a house-warming party. She’s not feeling well, so goes to sleep at about 6pm, woken up by the noise at 9pm, pops in the earplugs, gets really sound sleep. Apparently the rest of the neighborhood is up in arms the following day, writing him threatening letters… there were cars everywhere, and she says she woke up at 9pm ‘cause the music was unfamiliar, “something from a darker part of the continent”…. How does one from a country that neighbors said part of the continent take such a comment? Agh! I’m being too sensitive.
How about when discussing something at work and a white colleague says “there’s a cultural difference you see, between whites and blacks… I switch on a stove to cook… some of these people have never done that”… and here you are in all your black glory, knowing that it is nothing but the height of disrespect for someone to tell you this about “your people” to your face, while acting like “you’re not like them, you’re much better than they are, in fact, you’re just about one of us”… and you feel the weight of your assimilado mantle… but you cannot strike back because the reins of your African upbringing hold you back … never talk back to an elder/senior, never cause discord where you can walk away, why do you want to be known as a trouble-maker?… Or is it the fear of upsetting white people that was very quietly ingrained in you from day one? Perhaps there was a voice that whispered, earlier in your life: “…black Africans should be very, very careful not to exclude people that are actively and diligently working to help solve the many problems facing people in Africa…” and it renders you unable to speak up for “your people”… and by extension, unable to speak up for yourself. In any case, what can I say in response to such a comment? Yes it’s true that there may be people who have never switched on a stove to cook, but what does that have to do with the price of miraa in Mogadishu? And how dare you label it culture?
So there it goes… little by little… whatever humanity I thought I possessed, whatever self-esteem, confidence, pride, beauty, intelligence… slowly and subtly eroded by seemingly innocuous statements that are designed to knock around in my brain for a while… or perhaps I’m just being paranoid and looking for an excuse to explain away my lack of performance, self-esteem, confidence…etc.? But can it be paranoia if we all feel it? Of course not silly. If we all felt it, it would be ‘mass hysteria’… and I do believe many unfortunate too-much-thinkers, history buffs, and too-much-questioners are firmly in its grip, this mass hysteria. Count yourself fortunate not to belong to these ranks.
