The Black African's struggle for agency in a racialized society

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The most surprising aspect about living in a racialized world is that one rarely ever gets used to it. However colorfully the questions by which the curiosities about the Black African may be presented, the average recipient could peel through with relative ease. Yet, familiarity has never made those questions any less troubling to the souls of sub-Saharan folk.

Adjon Guy Ghislain Danho is a research fellow at Humboldt University Berlin. In a recent article he penned for Topafric, he shares his experience with a fellow whom he describes as an ``older man`` at a hotel in Munich. ``Did you come here by sea?`` asked the older man, ``No, I came by plane`` replied Mr. Danho, adding that he was also a writer, a teacher, a researcher and a proud farmer. ``You should listen to Adjon, he as a great project for Africa!`` says the older man as he introduced Danho to his colleagues. A version of this story could be told by well-nigh every Black African in the diaspora and it reminds me of a chance meeting I had with an older woman earlier this year.

It was a weekday in February when we met and the location was a polished co-working space in the heart of the city. My best friend and I were passing out flyers for an event I was organizing and upon seeing her we decided to approach. The usual `where do you come from?` turned into `what are you doing here?` Shortly after, she invited me to share my ``vast knowledge about Black history`` with her audience. The tone of the invitation, which I was given without any prior knowledge about my area of expertise, was as though I was being done a favor of a lifetime. To be fair, she could not have been much warmer than she was to me that day and I suspect she believed she was helping the cause as she understood it. But the audacious and condescending spirit of her demand made a sad impression on me; could I ask any white person on the street to tell my audience about white history?- I asked myself.

Ever since I have spent countless whiles pondering on that experience and on others- losing myself in countless moments of stillness with `what do they think of us?` as my only mantra. And so in this article, I endeavor to make sense of the partition that separates the Black African from his neighbors across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean with the hope that we, as a collective, could begin to individually and collectively confront the ignorance and the prejudices that are comfortably tucked in our subconscious and be more mindful, open, kind and yet honest with each other about who we are and or are not. 

As it is with most things of significance, the explanation for why certain views are held about the Black African are numerous and complex, and any attempt to reduce the uncomfortable curiosity about him or her to a single motive would likely be wrong if not unfair. There are, of course, the racists who only expect to see the Black African in the bush where she or he supposedly belongs. These are the same lowest common denominators who nowadays hide behind cultural differences to oppose even a whim from anyone who does not look like them. However, increasingly they have become a marginalized minority that is easy to detect, contain and avoid. The unavoidable majority, at least from experience, is neither racist at heart nor in mind and is often as supportive of the Black African`s cause as there is. Yet, I have too often found too many of the non-racist majority operating with assumptions that make the Black African feel uncomfortable if not outright unequal.

These assumptions are fermented by a view that the developed West is a reward for the rest of the world`s best with only a few exceptions. By extrapolation, the Black African in Berlin or Paris is the superior- smarter, more beautiful, healthier, richer and more modern - version of his kind in Accra or Dakar. However, at his best, he is an exceptional talent. But at his most deficient he represents what is wrong with Africa. Since Africans in the diaspora are generally viewed as the superior or more talented versions of their brethren back home, the dearth of Black African competition at the highest level in science and technology, education, business and finance and even in entertainment (for reasons that are inadequately addressed) is taken as evidence that not much can be expected from the continent. If Africa`s best is hardly competitive here, what does it say about those back home who are not even good enough to be allowed entry into the modern world?

A number of factors including the selective immigration policies of developed countries (as already insinuated), selective media coverage and the collective failure to fully grapple with the residual effects on the mind of the ideas that sustained slavery and colonialism for centuries are mostly to blame for shaping this view of people from the African continent. However, since this view took a long time and active work to take root, it will likely take some time and some action to uproot.

The bad news is that the past which has been handed down to us makes it easier for us to offend and mistreat each other without even knowing. The good news is that that same past which we have inherited was an act of mostly men, not God. Therefore, we, the men and women of today, can change its course if we choose differently. And since countless realities in our often separate and unequal spaces constantly seem to affirm the prejudice against the Black African, it is even more important for the non-racist but unwittingly prejudiced to de-educate themselves and for the Black African in the diaspora to be fully aware of the expectations before him and to resist the temptation to misrepresent. 

Who is the African in the diaspora? The African in the diaspora may be a lot of things, but he is not necessarily the smartest of his people. Often times it is the more fortunate and privileged that make it to Europe or North America. What is even more important is this; far too many of Africa`s talented minds are in bodies that are too poor, too feminine and too rural to be discovered through the privileged, foreign and rigid process that is formal education. Far too often it is not the one with the formal education that leads the household, the clan or the community. He is hardly ever the one with the solutions for the everyday problems that so often test the community. Hence, equating the smartest of the people with the fluent English or French speaker as is so often done is an affront not just to the collective intelligence of the African people, but also to basic human intelligence.

That aside, Black Africans in the diaspora have a responsibility to be clear about what they represent or do not present because it is the very logic that makes a dish, a song or a piece of fabric that is hardly known outside one ethnic group in one African country an African dish, an African song or an African dress that also makes the HIV pandemic in a place like South Africa an African problem. There is no such thing as an African culture any more than there is such a thing as an African disease - there are only African cultures and a disease that may be common in parts of Liberia may hardly be known in any part of Ghana. These differences must be embraced and reflected in our presentations and representations as individuals from the African continent. But it is also not the African`s responsibility to educate Europeans and the rest of the world about the complexities of life and the diversities between countries on the continent. For one, the average Ghanaian is hardly familiar with life outside of his own nation. The rest of the world is more than capable of learning and differentiating on its own. It knows which African country has the most oil and which is home to the late Nelson Mandela. The fact that it does not differentiate when it comes to diseases and conflicts is not the makings of an accident or inability but of choice.

But where the goal is always mutual understanding, cooperation and peaceful co-existence, there is no substitute for approaching each other as humans and as equals. As difficult as it might be, let us not lose sight of the fact that we are all, to some extent, victims of the very past we want to change, and let this knowledge guide our reactions to those questions that may offend us and the unfriendly answers they may solicit. Let us give each other the benefit of the doubt by being less assuming and let us treat each person as an individual. And maybe when we ask others about their days before we ask why they are here, we give ourselves a chance to have a more meaningful conversation and to tear down the walls of ignorance, prejudice and bigotry that stand between us and possibly form friendships that may forever endure.

Mohammed Adawulai