Skin color

This post is about episodes in my Zambian experience that I have encountered skin color and whiteness. I spell this out right away in an effort to acknowledge the delicateness of this issue and I hope that my readers will engage with my experiences with tolerance, compassion, but I also charge them with holding me and my words accountable. I welcome comments and criticisms about my word choices. I also hope each can turn to wonder and look inward into their own lives and experiences.

Here goes.

I scare babies in Zambia. Not all babies, thank God, but over and over again, waiting for my sister and brother at the local clinic, or sitting on a pew at church, I find myself making googly eyes at babies, trying to make them laugh or smile, and to my dismay, the baby turns wide-eyed, nuzzles into their parents shoulder, and then lets out shrieks of fright. This is when the parent leans over to me and says, “She’s never seen a white person before.”

Huh, I think. I honestly didn’t think about being the very first white person a human being ever saw. I’ve never thought of myself as such a novelty, so different. With a history of colonialism and whites coming to Africa, I honestly didn’t expect such a hub bub about my whiteness. I mean this is the year 2014! We’re getting over that race thing, right? (Keep reading…)

While babies show fear, others show disbelief, excitement, and interest. I can’t walk a street in a compound of Lusaka without children calling out to me in limited English, “How are you?” or endlessly repeating, “Muzungu, muzungu, muzungu, muzungu!” (“White person, white person, white person, white person!) I’ve had marriage proposals and much more. I’ve joked that if I ever need a confidence boost, all I need to do is walk around in Lusaka and I’ll feel like everyone loves me.

But I don’t actually feel like everyone loves me. I feel different. I feel out of place. I feel like a thing, not a person. Many times the comments carry the sting of feeling like I will never belong here.

I’ve talked to a few Zambians about this phenomenon. They ask me if their dark skin would receive the same attention in the United States.  I tell them that it would be seen as rude to blatantly point out someone’s skin color as they walked down the street. I’ve never personally seen an equivalent to what I’m experiencing here back home, and I think I would be even more shocked to see it on my own turf. But as I think of my own country’s problem with skin color, I know that my impression of American tolerance isn’t quite right. Sure my ego and identity are at stake and shattered as I walk around Lusaka, but unlike Blacks suffering from police brutality in Ferguson, MO, in my own country, my life is not in danger because of my skin color. The police, even here in Zambia, will protect me more, not less, because of my whiteness.

I have to constantly remind myself that the isolation I feel by the comments I hear around here is a meager fraction of the isolation, let alone brutality, blacks have felt at the hands of whites in Africa and the United States historically and even today. Yeah, hearing muzungu makes me feel uncomfortable, but maybe that’s the point. My discomfort is a reminder of my privilege, but it is also a reminder of the severe segregation still gripping this world.

Last weekend, I had the honor to stay at a cousin of the Tembo’s in another a compound. After attracting attention in the market, when we got home, the cousin reminded me, “People are just so excited to see a white person in the compounds.” Whites normally just don’t go there, let alone live there. I asked the cousin if she personally had ever known a white person. I was surprised when she stopped stirring the pot of noodles to think and then to say, “No, I don’t think so.” I was the first she had in her home.

The “firsts” of sight and of friendship, and the extremity of excitement at my appearance makes me think that the uncomfortable initial encounter with difference is normal and should be expected. The look of fear I have inspired in babies says it all. They can’t help it. It’s their first reaction. I’m not actually that scary, I swear, but their fear is very real. I can’t fault a baby that has only known this world for a few months to react to a stimulus they’ve never encountered in an unsure way. It’s natural. It’s natural to catch your breath when you encounter something new. Maybe it’s even natural to be so scared all you want to do is nuzzle into Momma and hope the world turns back to normal.

Little do we know that “normal” includes many different shades of skin, climates, foods, songs, worship styles, cultures, countries, etc… “Normal” is not what we know when we are babies. We have learn that difference isn’t so scary. We have to experience it. We have to take risks to learn it. We don’t know what difference is until we’ve spread our wings and looked up from Momma’s shoulder to double check this interesting person, and maybe after one more quick snuggle, open our eyes and hearts to a new normal, a new color, and new people.

If you think you are colorblind, if you think you are not racist, could you just be nuzzling into your Momma’s shoulder and pretending like you don’t have rational and irrational fears about difference? It’s ok. I’m opening my eyes anew everyday and, let me tell you, it takes effort and it’s scary and it’s certainly not as comfortable as a safe shoulder. But how safe are we if our eyes our closed all the time? What are we missing?