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Out of America or How I Became a
Marxist
By
Betty Wamalwa Muragori
I
went to study in the USA in the 1980s in the time of
what was to me the inexplicable presidency of Ronald
Reagan. It was an enigmatic presidency for me for
two reasons. First, at my university and amongst
the mostly left leaning circle that I was to hang
out with it, I never found anybody who had voted for
him. The second reason was that for me Reagan was
clearly challenged on the intellectual front. I
could not believe that a nation with all that
maedeleo or development, we in Africa so covet,
would tolerate some folksy guy who could have
come from a darker and more ignorant century.
Certainly the cool left leaning students at C
University had no time for Reagan.
In
my two years in the US the only person I found who
would publicly admit to voting for Reagan was a 65
year old black man, in Albany, Georgia, the
father-in-law of my cousin. Pops, as he was called
by his children, in that quintessential African
American manner, would routinely proclaim his love
for President Reagan, loudly to people, in the
presence of his children. He showed me his
Republican Party membership card, much to the
mortification of all his children, who murmured
about how the old man was finally going senile.
When he whipped out the letter from Reagan his
children teased him saying that he only received a
letter because he was special, for being the only
black Republican on the planet.
Pops broke two rules I had come to accept about
voting patterns in America, first that black people
were not members of the Republican Party and second
that they always voted for the Democratic Party. To
this day I am still left with the question, “So how
did President Ronald Reagan win with such landslide
victories twice, if only one black man in the South
voted for him?”
America’s Presidents and War
Eight months into America, I had imbibed the
paranoid conspiracy theories of my Marxist circle
and lost my African ease. Late one night I turned
on the television to find the President of the
United States of America, Ronald Reagan ranting and
raving in the most alarming manner about the “evil
empire”. He was referring to the former Soviet
Union, America’s then mortal enemy country of Cold
War days. And you thought “Axis of Evil” was
original? Do you see a pattern here? This is
clearly the language of America’s dumb dumb
presidents.
There is a moment in the deep night when reality
becomes suspended and we become susceptible to our
original lurking primeval selves. In this night
moment, assorted distorted demons and night
creatures with names like Linani, banshees,
ghosts, and ghouls rule as reality twists and turns
changing shape and resonance. The howl of a dog
becomes a were-wolf. On the Kenyan coast, that
night moment brings with it all manner of djins and
mermaids, prowling in their woman shape to steal the
souls of victim men. Mating cats evoke the screams
of damned souls burning in a Christian hell. It is
easy to believe the bizarre. (I am setting up my
excuse for what happened next.)
It
was at such a moment in the night that I found
Reagan’s ranting so aggressive that as I listened I
became convinced that I had only missed the first
part of his speech, in which he had finally gone
over the edge and declared war on the Soviet Union.
I went to bed that night terrified, in the grip of
my imaginary world war. Before I fell into erratic
sleep I obsessed about how I would not be able to
get out of the US before the actual war started and
that I would die alone in a foreign land. The next
morning I was relieved and abashed to find that all
was normal and there was no sign of impending war.
Twenty years later as I watched the elections that
brought another dumb, dumb unfathomable US president
into power, George Bush Jr., I realized that my
vantage point with its emphasis on linear
“development” or maedeleo had warped my
thinking. Until that instant, I had thought
development also brings highly enlightened people
who would not lie about the presence of weapons of
mass destruction to bring pain and destruction to
innocent women and children many miles away in
another country. For what, for oil, (I can’t
believe that), to get revenge for daddy, (that’s too
weird) to get their way (what way, the American way
in Baghdad?) To be right about a perspective?
(Probably the only right answer outrageous as it may
seem.)
For
us in this part of the world, things like
technological advancement, elimination of hunger,
industrial development, foreign vacations,
microwaves, one doctor per 100 people, four lane
highways, per capita income of US$ 30,000, a new car
every two years, pensions, social security, (pick
your top ten) all of which come with development
also lead to progress, to maendeleo. And
ultimately to enlightenment, the cherry on top of
the development cake. We think, surely in America
or Europe there must be such enlightenment that
people, ordinary people everywhere must have become
immune from the dictates of the baser human urgings
like fear, malice, jealousy, racism, intolerance,
corruption, violence, the need to declare war for
dubious reasons, religious fanaticism, (again pick
your top ten).
It
is easy to believe that if we were to invent a
machine that would test our level of enlightenment
we would find that those with more development have
more enlightenment. This would render them immune
from making decisions on lowly unenlightened aspects
of being a human being such as uncertainty and fear
of tomorrow, fear of the other, dictates of their
religion, what the bible says, what the Koran says,
what the mullahs say, what the priest says. And
finally I understand that this is not the case just
because you have more stuff doesn’t mean you are
more enlightened.
I
now realize of course that human beings may have
made huge technological advances such that they can
send men to the moon or invent the internet and they
will still rely on some form of magic, juju
or alchemy for managing their lives. The advances
have not created certainty. In fact they create
even more uncertainty and the threat of a backlash
which can take people deeper into the bosom of their
juju side.
From Nairobi to America
Before I went to America I was a student of the
biological sciences at the University of Nairobi.
Some one had put the University of Nairobi on the
then outskirts of town. But it had not been far
enough. By the 1970s, the outskirts were already
part of the central business district and students
could make their grievances felt by literally
pelting the central business district with sticks
and stones. It was a rioting student’s paradise.
During my time, there were numerous riots,
demonstrations and campaigns many with echoes of
Marxism or some left leaning ideology with slogans
like “Down with the Bourgeoisie the proletariat
rule!!!” shouted by students as they battled the
police in the streets.
Somehow throughout these riots I was able to remain
largely innocent of any ideological infection.
Which is incredibly surprising because we were sent
home on at least four occasions over the three years
for some issue with ideological overtones. In total
we spent about seven months at home, the male
students had to report to their local chief every
week but the women were not taken as a threat so we
did not have to report.
The
only time I was absolutely certain about what we
were striking for was the time we went on strike
over food. We were all tired of the strange
cuisine. The final provocation came when even the
minced meat had weevils in it, I kid you not! For
those of you who do not know what weevils are, these
creatures are a type of beetle. And for those of
you who may not know this never having been exposed
to the wonderful world of entomology here are some
facts to fascinate. Beetles the family of
Coleoptera had over 300,000 species in 1980.
Weevils Curculionidae had 65,000 species in
the same year. I am sure many more have been
discovered since I studied entomology. The thing is
they are all vegetarian, they will infest beans,
legumes, rice, maize, but none feeds on meat. So I
could never get it, how did the weevils get into the
minced meat? Wry uncertain humour, we half joked
that they must have used them to season the minced
meat.
Rioting Students
It
was always those unserious art students at main
campus who started the riots. We science students
with our 36 hour-a-week schedule which was not much
reduced from our secondary school schedules, had no
time for such frivolous pursuits. Also we had no
ideology to spur us to action and were so out of
touch with current issues that we had no idea that
our politicians were up to no good and that we
should care. No science lecturer was ever caught in
the political crosshairs at least during my time.
The
arts students had plenty of time with their 8 hr a
week lecture schedule which we sneered at,
ideologies such as Marxism, political issues that
they cared about and lecturers with a death wish to
egg them on. So what would happen is that the arts
students had to use threat and force to get us to
join their strike. When a strike started we would
be the first target and rather than face the wrath
of our fellow students we joined in. Soon we were
caught up in the excitement of the moment and forgot
our original reluctance. We were to be seen wearing
jeans and sneakers, running around town being chased
by police, stoning unsuspecting motorists in an orgy
of anarchy that was surprisingly heady even when the
threatened dire consequences were that we would be
beaten or raped by the police and the paramilitary,
(at this time they still did not use live
ammunition) and expelled wherever you had reached in
your education. Were you in your first year or were
just about to graduate? I took part in the running
around town part. I didn’t want to take part in the
stoning of motorist in case one of those motorists
was my mother or father or one of their friends.
Twenty years later the reality of becoming a
nameless stoned motorist, the ones we used to talk
about so casually, the one who lost her eye, “Oh how
sad”, “…the one who died” …… uncomfortable silence,
the one whose car was burnt and had her leg broken
when she tried to jump over a six foot fence hotly
pursued by angry students shouting “down with the
bourgeoisie, workers unite!” … loud laughter at the
image of the heavy set woman trying to jump a six
foot fence. That scene of long ago came to me as I
faced a young man holding a stone and about to
unleash it on my windscreen. Time stood still. I had
driven into a riot of university students. Have you
ever had one of those moments of danger when your
life hangs in balance under the specter of deadly
violence? I live in Africa so I have had several.
For me these moments always come with a loud
metallic screeching/whistling sound. A sound that
crystallizes danger itself.
From nowhere the moment was interrupted, a student
stepped out, and stopped the young man at the last
possible moment, for no reason that I can fathom,
except that it was not my day yet. “Drive away!” he
shouted urgently at me. I reversed and drove like
the devil escaping my moment. To that nameless
student who saved my life and to all those nameless
students who have saved other people’s lives just
because, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Being Cold in America
I
arrived in America in the dead of winter never
having experienced winter in my life. I also went
to a Marxist university only having been vaguely
aware of this ideology or the concept of ideologies
for that matter, so I was green on many fronts. If
my father had known and then been able to believe
that he was sending me to America to a Marxist
university would he have so happily walked me to the
door of the airport with such pride giving me one of
his gems to take with me? I repeated it later to my
new boyfriend, starry eyed, in “behold the wisdom of
my father, I want to share it with you” moment, only
to find that it was Confucius who originated it?
You can guess the one “A journey of a thousand miles
begins with one step”. I remember laughing and not
being embarrassed by the busting of my father’s
“original” gem. You must understand that I had once
believed that my father could speak Russian.
It
was the cold that almost got me first. It was
February, the dead of winter. The sixth day I was
there, I looked out of the window and the sun was
shining off of pristine snow. I felt joyful at the
prospect of warm sunshine on my skin. I dressed and
walked the one km to the university campus. Only,
my calculations did not make sense as I got colder
and colder. Sunshine did not equal warmth here.
The light coat and sweater I had worn were no
defense against the bitter winter cold. 20 minutes
later I was sitting in the reception room of the
University admission block, feeling sorry for
myself, trying not to cry as my extremities
defrosted painfully, my ears, toes and fingers. I
could have gone home that second if my ticket was
not one way.
A Party in America
Eventually I settled in and made some friends. I
was soon invited to my first party. When you hear
the word “party” it should mean the same thing
wherever you are right? For me at that time it
meant dressing up in something sexy and provocative,
make-up, jewelry (I still believe secretly that it
was I who introduced the whole bling concept to the
USA), high heels and looking forward to dancing and
meeting gorgeous and dateable guys. I marvel today
at how many eligible men there were to choose from
back then at any party, I was always spoilt for
choice.
So
of course I arrive at the party Kenyan style,
dressed to the nines and fashionably late, to make
my entrance and to envelope myself with the “whose
that girl” factor. The cache in being remembered
translated directly into attentions of at least
three of the hottest guys at the party. And then
the routine. Open the door of the crowded room,
stop, framed by the door, hold pose as if looking
for someone. But what you were actually doing is
allowing them to look at you, and then step into the
room sure of the impression you had created.
I
went into routine mode and nearly gagged as I
realized just what an overdressed spectacle I was.
One woman was still in the droopy old t-shirt that
she had used when we jogged that morning. The only
difference now was that the widening sweat marks
under her armpits were not because of the jogging
but because of the heat in the room. I couldn’t
believe it! The other students were similarly
dressed in old jeans, t-shirts, sweats and ill
fitting sweaters. I was now embarrassed as all eyes
turned to me just as I had intended. By now retreat
would only have made me more conspicuous and for
longer. Days rather than hours. I held my head up
and deciding to brazen it, walked into the room.
This was only the beginning of my introduction to
party etiquette in America.
Did
I mention that I was a geek from University of
Nairobi? I soon learned a new definition of geek
because a Nairobi University geek took time out to
party and one of our rules was that you never talked
about anything remotely related to the courses we
were taking during party time. The two were
exclusive. I don’t remember what we talked about
but what we did at parties was dance like mad, and
tune and be tuned. And here in the university in
the US life was one continuous seminar without end.
I
joined a group of friends and my face lit up in a
smile anticipating delicious banter with that cute
guy I had the hots for. At last the party was the
perfect place to advance my intentions with him. As
I stood there awhile I realized that I needed to
quickly disappear the smile, it was clearly
inappropriate during a discussion about historical
materialism, Hegel, Marx, Gramscii. After 15
minutes looking for an opportunity to make my
impression I gave up. I knew the language.
English. But if you held a gun to my head and asked
“Tell me what they are talking about or I shoot” I
would have had to let you shoot my brains out. I
had no idea. I moved to another group of my friends
and found them similarly engaged in what can only be
referred to as deep intellectual discourse and again
I could not understand them.
My
frustration was growing, you must understand what
this was like for a loud and voluble person. This
is my only point in mitigation for what happened
next. The third group at last held some promise.
There was a word I found familiar, and as I write
what I said, not only do my toes still curl up in
embarrassment, twenty years on, but those of my
husband as well. The word was “reactionary”. I had
to seize the moment and make my intellectual mark.
“Oh” I said President Moi is a reactionary, he
always reacts to everything” I looked around at the
upturned faces with pride at this insight.
And
then I launched into a story about President Moi and
his reactions, by way of illustration you
understand. “One time when we were at the
university President Moi had gone to India on a
State Visit. By the time he returned it was a week
before JM day which is the day a populist member of
parliament called J.M. Karuiki had been assassinated
10 years before. The students always marked this
day by demonstrating which would soon deteriorate
into riots and running battles with the police. The
university was always closed after the fracas. This
year though we students had gone against the grain
and decided that we would mark the day by doing good
in the community. We had decided to establish a J.M.
Karuiki Foundation and to clean up slum areas and
donate to poor people. So when we heard the
president’s declaration even before he set his feet
on Kenyan soil that the whole current three years of
university would be expelled and “the nation would
feel nothing”, “if we dared riot on this years’ JM
Karuiki Day”, we were so outraged that we were
simply provoked into action. We rioted. And
funnily enough for the first time he did not react
for the first week. We then decided that we would
riot until he sent us all home. So we did.”
Many years down the road I am still grateful that
they did not burst out laughing. Instead someone
politely said one word “yes, that’s an interesting
perspective to the word reactionary, you are quite
right President Moi is a reactionary” and the
conversation continued seamlessly undisturbed.
Going Home a Feminist
I
soon got used to this version of a party American
style so much that when I came back home I had a
hard time adjusting to the Kenyan approach. More so
because I had come back with a head full of
ideologies that did not mix well with the ogle fest
that are Kenyan parties. This time I took years to
get back on track spending time at parties skulking
in corners with the one or two other like-minded
people and with a drink in one had and a cigarette
in the other, both habits picked up in America and
now used to camouflage my despair at the lack of
opportunity for rigorous intellectual discourse at
these Kenyan affairs.
Of
all the ideologies I picked up the most incompatible
with my country was my hard core feminism. It was
not just any ordinary feminism, but one that looked
for converts with the fanaticism of a born again
Christian from the American Bible-belt out to
capture souls in Africa. And I never missed a
chance to advance my mission. I was a one woman
missionary determined to be martyred at the altar of
feminism.
Red
bull statements that would spur me into action were
endless. “Oh you know women are like that” or “Oh
you know women are their own worst enemy”. My
country back then was still so innocent that it did
not know that it should hide its chauvinism from
view, at least in public. There were many sexist
and misogynist statements said in my hearing by men
and women on a daily basis.
Just so that there would be no room for speculation,
I would declare my feminism openly on introduction.
It wasn’t quite, “Hi my name is Sitawa and I am a
rabid feminist who is vigilant and looking for
opportunities to spring into action in defense of
women everywhere by lecturing you into submission
for any anti-woman statement that I may detect”.
But it might as well have been. How I actually
introduced myself was “Hello my name is Sitawa and I
am a feminist” I said, looking them straight in the
eye, daring them to make a joke of my declaration.
Just in case you might be misled into thinking that
there was any irony here and maybe laugh out loud
because you found the introduction funny, the
clothing and demeanor completed the picture. I wore
a uniform of black jeans, shapeless t-shirts and
sneakers, in the drab universal uniform of feminists
at least in the US. “Appreciate my mind not my
behind” is what I meant to say with my whole
presentation to protect myself from another little
habit I had picked up from the US, an aversion for
unsolicited male attention.
All
my friends were innocent. After I had lectured
three or four of them for half an hour each on
separate occasions I soon found myself alone. I
wore my aloneness like a badge of honour, seeing it
as the inevitable the price paid by any champion of
a cause who sticks their neck out. Nelson Mandela
who was still in on Robben Island, Ghandi. Thank
goodness I had seen the film
The Loneliness of a Long Distance Runner I
could use the image conjured by the title to console
myself when I felt like giving up.
In
an act of rebellion against my society, I smoked
openly even in front of my father. This particular
statement was especially effective in establishing
my rebel credentials to no one in particular. When
my friends gasped and questioned this particular act
as going too far, I had another lecture prepared for
them. “My aunts” I would say from my imaginary soap
box, “Up country, in the rural areas smoke and drink
so why shouldn’t I?” Some of my aunts do. In the
western part of Kenya women can smoke cigarettes.
Some of my aunts smoke cigarettes but with the fire
in their mouths. I have never seen a man smoke like
this and I don’t know why. I have one particular
aunt who is hard smoking and hard drinking, who has
always gone drinking with her husband so I just
don’t understand the sanctions levied against the so
called modern African woman, “read” a woman in the
city. Ok so I concede that now that my aunt is
eighty she can’t sleep because my father says she
sees long lines of women carrying baskets on their
heads marching all the time before her eyes day and
night. If it's not long lines of women then it is
long lines of insects.
I
have long since quit all those habits I picked up
from America. I gave up picking on every body
around me because I realized that I had mistaken
being constantly angry and fighting with people who
did not agree with my opinion with championing a
cause. Besides it was alienating and exhausting
and no one wanted to hang out with me because I was
so intense and boring. When my friends could talk
to me again they told me that they had run away from
me because I was just plain boring.
The American South
I
went to visit my cousin’s in-laws in the American
South in Albany, Georgia for a week and discovered I
could not hear so I took to endless grinning and
nodding my head. I left those people thinking I was
simple in the head. But I couldn’t understand them
and I soon got tired of asking them to repeat
themselves so I withdrew into an African grin of
protection and lost my reputation in the process.
They speak English in the South so it wasn’t the
language and there was still a language barrier.
The long dragged words that go on seemingly forever
lost my short attention span. I found that my mind
had wondered before the end so I never heard the
finish. Caaaahhhn aaaaah speeeek to Eyyyyd Coooook
is what I thought I overheard a woman in a bank
asking. It was shocking to hear, like somebody
caricaturing an American. I tried not to laugh and
asked my cousin-in-law what the woman was saying.
And she translated, “Can I speak to Ed Cook?”
I
visited my first flea market on the same visit in
the South. A large African like market selling what
we call mitumba in Kenya, in all forms, old
clothes and shoes, kitchenware, furniture, as well
as more specialized things like vintage clothing
(read very old mitumba,) and stuff that was
ordinary people’s artistic expression of
themselves. My cousin-in-law introduced me to a
little old black woman at a stall selling
miscellaneous mitumba as her cousin from
Africa.
“What!” proclaimed the little old black woman, “But
you real pretty, I thought Africans were dark black
with kinky hair and big fat noses and mouths but you
real fine.” She declared in amazement.
I
was equally astonished at her casual black on black
racist stereotype that she spewed, blithely unaware
that she should hide it or at least not say it
straight to my face. But she was simply the first to
air such views. During my two-week Southern sojourn
I soon grew accustomed to hearing similar guileless
declarations about some African stereotype that I
didn’t fit, from black people. From questions about
where I learnt to dance like that, (I can dance!) to
where I had learnt to speak so proper, to my dress
sense on and on.
Virtual Segregation in the American South
The
other big thing that I experienced for the first
time in the US was hard wired virtual segregation.
There were no signs designating white and black
zones any where in Albany, Georgia that I saw.
Indeed on the surface all seemed well in race
terms. But even my Republican cousin’s
father-in-law made sure he hid his de-segregated
business to keep up appearances. He was in business
with a white person because it was a good business
cover that allowed him to get white business. The
trick was he had to keep his partnership hidden so
that he could get and keep that lucrative white
business. He passed himself off as a worker in the
business. I know the logic is challenging.
The
two groups occupied the same physical spaces, they
ate at the same restaurants, entered all buildings
and transport from the same entrance, sat anywhere
on buses. And yet my stranger’s eyes quickly saw
through this façade and identified the fault lines
of virtual segregation. The new apartheid still did
not allow the twain to commune freely even as they
congregated. As soon as I stepped into those spaces
I could feel the barriers. There was a sense of
forced togetherness. If the gap between the two
races could speak it would say, “OK we have to share
this same physical space but we are not giving up
our right to be separate. They can take away our
right to segregation but they can’t take segregation
out of our hearts.” It was in what was missing in
the interaction between black and white. There was
no ease, peacefulness, insignificance, silence,
freedom, love.
What existed in that gap was tension, a hateful
watchfulness and worst of all an embryonic violence
that was always ready to grow into fully-fledged
adulthood. You could feel it. This violence ebbed
and flowed and hung around like a dark threat. When
I was amongst black people everyone was relaxed,
very laid back as a people, but in the presence of a
group of white people in the segregated spaces there
was an all round tensing a watchfulness, an
expectation of something unpleasant.
Black and white people occupied those common public
spaces differently too. White people seemed to strut
and begrudge black people’s presence. It was white
people who still seemed to be the bona-fide owners
of the space. Black people were the interlopers,
but they had no choice, they had to occupy the
spaces, otherwise they risked recreating segregation
by their absence. But the sense of threat in those
spaces implied that Black people occupied those
spaces under peril. Desegregation had been about
pulling down the limits placed on the existence of
black people. It was not white people who were
fighting to sit in the seats reserved for black
people on buses or to use the back only entrances.
Desegregation demands that white people cede space
and privileges that define their place in society.
Race in the North
My
experience of race in the American North was not one
of absence rather the North was racially
clandestine, a state I much preferred. It gave me
freedom to spend many more hours in a day being just
another human being. The colour of my skin was not
a constant conscious presence foisted on me by open
racial hostility. Thank you but I am not black, I
really am just a person. I am an African living in
Africa so although I have many identities being
black is not my premier identity. That is the
advantage of growing up black in Africa.
When I brought this to the attention of my Southern
black relatives-in-law they made that claim that
always bemuses me. “I like the South they said, the
boundaries are clear; people here are not hypocrites
like in the North. I know where I stand here with
them.”
“I
know where I stand?” What the hell is that? What I
understand from that telling statement is an
admission on the part of black people that it’s OK
for there to be limits on a black person’s
existence. I never heard a white person say things
like that, only black people. For a person simply
because of the hue of their skin to know where he or
she could go and what he or she could expect from
their world? In other words there was a limit of
possibility which means that there was no
possibility at all. And it was fine for white
people to have veto powers over the dreams, scope of
existence of black people. You can dream so much
and no more. You can aspire so far and no further,
these are the limits on your movement. And black
people accepted this proscribed world and were happy
that they knew their place in this controlled
world. That world was a banned dream which they
passed onto their children and this was done with
the active connivance of black people. To know my
place?
I
understand how dangerous the world in which black
people live in the South. I imbibed a small part of
that fear many thousands of miles away from movies
and media reports of the Ku Klux Klan. So much so
that I arrived in America terrified. For four days
I refused to leave my sister’s apartment because I
was sure the Ku Klux Klan were going to gun me
down. Living with that dreadful history can skew
any one and the wonder is that black people have
lived to step out of the shadow of such terrors and
nightmares. The journey has had its negative impact
that sometimes their ability to see beyond the
boundaries of their terror has been compromised.
This is where Africans can lend their sight when the
dreams have been extinguished. We have the same
racial reality because our existence in the world
gives us the same reference points. Yet we live in
our own homes largely amongst our own people. We
are not vested in only a racial reality. Our human
reality predominates. We can fly above “black
person negatives” and separate fact from damaging
fiction. A person exposed to these negatives on a
daily basis for most of their livee will lose their
perspective. Such an environment can beat down the
most-thick skinned, sanguine, optimist man and woman
and create an oversensitive “defensive human” who
can no longer see the forest for the trees and
perceives racism under every bush. Such an
environment can leave people severely embattled and
debilitated. Centuries of actual and virtual
lynching that black people are subjected to in the
USA will do that.
Psychologically I am rather sensitive. I found the
race issue to be intrusive enough in the North where
it was not so in your face. It had me in impact. I
found myself engaged from time to time in what
manifested as flash-back-filled fits of
mother-less-child weeping sessions. The kind of
crying that was inconsolable, with heaving and
copious tears. The kind that is only done in
hiding. The first time it happened I did not
understand what was going on. From nowhere floods
of tears came. At first they were quite frequent
every three months or so. Soon the stretches
between one bout and another grew in months and at
the end they stopped. I had stopped expecting more
out of this country.
What were they, they were, silent tears of rage and
despair at the seemingly unseen-with-the-naked-eye
accumulation of incidences of racism that
encountered me on a daily basis. My mother has
always told me that I am too thin-skinned, I let
things get too easily under my skin. And it’s
true. I just let the incidences seep into my
subconscious. I never could speak out at them. I
had no skills to deal with them in the moment. The
moment of action would be long past before I
recognised what had just happened. And some were
subtle only discernable in the pattern my
subconscious registered as I remained occupied in
the hunt for that cut price designer shoe that I
desired and could afford on my student stipend. It
wasn’t until it had long happened again and again
from store to store in a single day that I
recognized what was happening. The only black
person in the group of friends being singled out for
kindly help again and again.
posted 1 July 2007
Betty Wamalwa
Muragori is especially interested in how Africans
are constructing new identities as they redefine their
place in the world. She believes in the power of
words. She has a BSc degree from the University of
Nairobi and MA in Environment from Clark University in
Worcester Mass. USA. Currently Betty works for an
international conservation organization in Nairobi,
Kenya. bettymuragori@yahoo.com
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Responses
Betty, thanks ever so much for your wonderful creative essay "Out of America or
How I Became a Marxist." I was laughing throughout. You are a wonderful
storyteller. I hope I learn much from your skills. I too hate to be a bore. I
learned certainly about my America through your fresh African eyes, which sees
the humorous idiocy of many aspects of our lives. I do hope many others will
read you as well and be refreshed. That is, step back from their present
consciousness and see their worlds again, as you did when you returned to Kenya,
and finally threw off your American training. Do stay in touch. I will always
welcome your writings -- Rudy
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Dear Rudy,
Thank you so much for your kind words. You are my
inspiration! I adore your writing as well and I am learning so much
interestingly that I too have a unique voice that I can share with people. The
pieces you write about your life are awesome. It is like I can reach out and
touch you and your family many miles away. Thank you for sharing.
--Betty * *
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update
29 May 2009 |
