It Does Matter If You Are Black Or White - Even Now

Sometimes, the best way to deal with the racial divide is to emphasise the dividing lines, rather than follow in the tracks of the politically-correct hypocrites. For, race is still a dividing issue, despite grand multicultural efforts aimed at bridging the divide. President Barack Obama recently told David Letterman, a news and analysis Talk show host: “It is important to realise that I was actually black before the election.” He had before the Letterman interview made a bold comment on race, in reaction to people’s appreciation of his health policy reforms, that there were Americans who voted for him because of his colour, and there are those who did not vote for him because he was black. These were some of the very few occasions that Obama had played the race card. Americans, in fact, a greater majority of them, still recognise the dividing lines in the various races, but an even greater percentage may be prepared to jump over the lines when necessary. And Obama knows this. He tells Letterman: “The American people gave me this extraordinary honour, and that tells you where the country is at.”

It is uncomfortable to talk about race, even jokingly. People would get the fun side of it, especially if it is rendered in a light-hearted language, but it does touch a nerve and remind them of their standing and self-worth. Not talking about it only urges us to press the mute button, but it doesn’t mean the issue is silent. Last week, a Caucasian family in Canada was hit with racist vandalism. The family live with two black kids, 12 and 14, that were adopted from Haiti. They have lived in harmony with their predominantly white neighbours until the attack. One of their neighbours wrote the words “Nigger Lover” on their house. The children tell their mum: “Mum we know why they did it; it is because of us.” The family is so concerned because they know it is not a child that has written that message. The vandal had done the writing earlier in the night, and had come back to deepen it with a permanent black marker. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police was called to investigate the incident. They reportedly seemed very concerned.

A Ghanaian professor in British Columbia commented on the incident as thus: “Just when you think it cannot happen again, it does.” The academic, a Darfur campaigner and human rights activist, has also called for a full investigation into the publication of some photographs in which some cannibals of Chinese or Thai background proudly slaughtered, marketed and ate black people. The horrible photos show the dismembered body of a black man sprawled on a chopping board. The limbs of the middle-aged looking man are first chopped off, followed by the head before his intestines are shovelled out by joyful and convivial-looking men and women. The decapitated head is placed on a white paper to make it more visible while the cannibals shamelessly peel off the flesh from the dismembered limbs. The torso is cut into barbecue-friendly pieces as a giant locally manufactured coal pot billows smoke into the atmosphere to welcome the meat of the black man. When it is done, the members of the group carry their plates to collect sizeable portions of the barbequed meat. They pose for photographs to celebrate the game.

This, if not a hoax, did happen in this internet age. Even if it is a hoax, why must it be a black body that was barbequed? There are other colours that would look just as nice on the stove. Yet, when it does happen, we all sing in unison, employing adjectives and surprise-laden phrases to express our disgust. We have often asked: How could they, or wondered whether such things could happen in an age of enlightenment, where the internet has made information about nearly everything readily accessible. But we have also not quite confronted such abuses with the seriousness they deserve. Where we have, we have merely discussed them like any other social problem. Racism is not just a social problem; it is evil-something ingrained in the minds of those who live it. And we must fight those people with the same ammunition that we would the 9/11 terrorists. And perhaps we need a more formidable arsenal to fight it, because while terrorists make themselves known by often shooting and killing instantly, racist people are pretenders who share the same buses, neighbourhoods and colleges with us. They sneak out to write on walls and retire to the friendly house next door.

To be fair, many Caucasians are well-intentioned people who are impatient with the least expression of racism. They are those who would not encourage their children to laugh at black jokes or even have them imitate people who speak English with an accent. They are also those who genuinely regret the slave trade times and are unopposed to reparations or apologies. And we must immediately get used to the idea that the word racism is not reserved for only the Caucasian; there are blacks and other people of colour who are very racist. They detest other races and blame their disadvantage on a certain evil trade that ended more than two centuries ago. They are even more dangerous than the known white tattoo-bathed white supremacists, because they are out on revenge.

So, even though it sounds distasteful and racist in itself, it is still important to ask whether black and white do mix very well. Not too long ago, Mr Michael Jackson sensationally put out a statement: It doesn’t matter if you are black or white. Apart from the Thriller and a $400Million estate, that statement on race and colour is one of the important things the singer left behind. He himself had done well to have transmogrified his person into an incongruous mixture of black and white, and eventually morphing into something only Neverland could explain, because it was never to have happened on this land. Yet, the statement, which was carried on his Dangerous album, would provoke a lot of questions in any inquiring mind, unless there is a deliberate effort to carry Christian charity very far, by pretending that even if it does matter whether you are black or white, we should make it appear as if it shouldn’t matter, because colour itself does not matter.

But colour does matter. It always has. Two weeks ago, I quoted a shocking statement made by America’s first President, Abraham Lincoln, in 1858. And I would repeat it here, too: “I will say, then, that I am not, nor have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races; that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters and jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; I will say, in addition to this, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality…and I as much as any other am in favour of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”

This position hasn’t changed much today. Where there have been changes, especially institutional changes on the racial turf, they have mostly been allowed because the exigencies of the post-slavery dispensation demand it. We may have a black American president but some people, including those who voted Obama, are still in Lincoln’s thinking, and they would complete his thoughts any day. Mark that Lincoln did not talk about other races such as the mongoloid (Asians), the Hispanic (Mexican/Puerto Rican/Latin American, or any of the many subraces such as the slavs, celts, meds, Germanics etc. Are the Drivadians the same as the Aborigines in Australia? Is there such a race as the Australoids? And how many races are there anyway? People identify five: Caucasoid (Europeans, Arabs, Persians), Negriod (Africans and black Americans), Mongoloid (Japanese, Chinese, Mongols), Australoid (Australian Aborigines) and the Khoisan. Others talk of the Tasmanians and the Pygmies as different races. The US Census identifies the different races in America but the Office of Management and Budget is quick to state that the recognition of the categories has no foundation in scientific or anthropological definitions. In any case, any biologist or a good sociologist would say there is only one race: The Homo sapien.

So why would anybody cut up and barbeque the black? Well, maybe it is because the Tutsis and the Hutus cut up each other, in much the same way that Sierra Leonean give their fellow nationals the option to choose between long hands (chopping the arm at the wrist), and short hands (chopping it from the shoulders). In these recession times, rebels are still destroying oil lines at the Niger Delta in Nigeria, killing innocent brothers and sisters. Then Darfur, where the Arabs think themselves superior to the very dark skinned people, brutalising and cowing them into submission. The suspicion, as the International Criminal Court claims, is that President Omar Al-Bashir “masterminded and implemented a plan to destroy in substantial part” three tribal groups because of their ethnicity. What is the colour of the people of these tribes? So far, some 200, 000 civilians have died from a combination of violence, disease and malnutrition. 2.7 Million have been displaced and some 250, 000 have crossed borders into Chad.

Suddenly, the world is full of so many dramas, conflict being the essence of many a drama. So, the conflicts are also never-ending. Whoever thought that Duane ‘Dog’ Chapman, somebody who appears to have a panoramic worldview and a latitudinal attitude to race would have any racist tendencies? Hark! Don’t be quick to condemn him; his first President had given the instruction that whites should not marry blacks. Perhaps that also explains why very few ‘black and white’ marriages succeed. They are normally unions of convenience, or perhaps inconvenience, like all other marriages. One of my colleagues politely asked me: “Why do you blacks usually marry fat white women?” Then, as we do in my country, I dignified the question with another question: “Why do some white men marry fat white women?” We laughed the joke off but later I found myself asking: why did Gregg ask me that kind of question? I think it is a racist comment. But he had asked the question out of sheer curiosity, so I didn’t feel the need for a query. Besides, such queries only scratch at the surface of the big problem. Rodney Coates of Miami University identifies two forms of racism: covert and Overt. Covert racism, according to him, “is born out of imperialist needs to maximise profit at the expense of racialized others, shielded by institutions, culture, stereotypical assumptions, and tradition. Overt racism assumes blatant and insidious forms.” There isn’t much of a choice between the two. In the end, it does matter if you are black or white, I am afraid.

Benjamin Tawiah btawiah@hotmail.com