Black and White

I saw a documentary the other day on SABC Africa, the South African broadcasting channel that is distributed throughout the continent on cable tv, about a British man that traveled to Kenya to get a taste of the country. When he arrived in Nairobi, he asked his taxi driver to take him to see some of the local culture. The driver dropped him off at a five star hotel where every night there was a buffet dinner with gazelle and antelope meat roasted on skewers, and a dance and drums show called Black Jambo. The dancers and musicians were quite talented - fabulous really - and the meat was exotic. Exactly as planned for the 100% white, affluent crowd. The tab came out to over $150 dollars. The british host of the program was somewhat disgusted and felt like just another white tool in the machine wanting a taste of Authentic Africa.

The next day he asked the cab driver to take him to see something more realistic. The driver took him to his own neighborhood, the shantytown where he had grown up and where, coincidentally, all the members of the Black Jambo dance and drum troupe lived as well. The dancers had established an informal charitable foundation and were teaching local kids how to juggle, do handsprings, play the drums, and so forth. The British host spent a day with everyone in the shantytown, feeling finally a taste of what he perceived to be Authentic Africa, and at the end of it all coming down with a big case of GUILT for being white, priviledged, etc.

The following scene in the documentary was an interview with the host of the program and a man originally from the US but who had been in Kenya since he was 5 years old. The American man had founded a giraffe sanctuary and had dedicated his life to caring for and raising awareness about the gentle animals. The host of the program asked him some questions about being white in Africa, about how he felt about his position in life seeing that he was surrounded by slums and children begging on the streets.

The giraffe man responded with an answer that really intrigued me -

The richest people in Africa, by far, are black Africans. They have the real power on the continent and enjoy wealth and luxury far beyond what the western world imagines.

Indians come after the black Africans in terms of affluence, benefiting from years as the dominant players in commerce and trade, entrepreneurial to the bone and sound financial investors in many areas.

Next come the Europeans and whites in general. Perhaps because they are a minority, their wealth is more noticeable...

Then came the statement I wish more people would understand -

All the whites in Africa are well off comparitively speaking. There are no poor Europeans on the continent. And although the blacks represent the few individuals that control the wealth and power in African society, they also represent the most destitute, hopeless majority that inhabit the urban streets and rural expanses of the continent.

Race relations in Africa has been on my mind a lot these days...Lots of paradigms being broken, admitting to myself that I bought into several stereotypes along with the rest of the world...

We have a client that is a very wealthy, white South African and one of the most staunch supporters of black economic and social empowerment that I have encontered here...

Another client is a European that, despite his cultured background and world-class education, is one of the most closed-minded bigots I´ve ever encountered...

Yet another example is an associate of ours in Chimoio that is Mozambican, born of a white Portuguese father and a black African mother. He is the worst discriminator of the lot, calling his darker compatriots uncivilized fools, convinced that because of his mixed blood he is somehow better...

This kind of attitude turns my stomach but, at the same time, I can´t help but feel sorry for our mestizo Mozambican friend or the racist Italian...

Human beings are truly pitiful, in every sense of the word.