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Because of course, you're not like one of them...

The end result of the African foreigner privilege, usually dispensed with condescension, is that Africans are becoming buffers between white and black America. There is now a plethora of reports comparing African students to African American students. The conclusion is that if Africans fresh off the boat are doing better than African Americans who have been here for centuries, then racism can no longer be blamed. But the reports do not consider that, just maybe, at either Harvard or a community college, Africans experience race differently from African Americans. Africans experience a patronising but helpful racism, as opposed to the hostile, threatened and defensive kind that African Americans grow up with. Racism wears a smile when meeting an African; it glares with hostility when meeting an African American.

And he continues on race relations between Africans and African Americans, which I believe is spot-on...

Africans in the US can end up becoming foils to continuing African American struggles, because they buy into the stereotypes. They end up seeing African Americans through a racist lens. This is not to say that African Americans have not themselves bought into racist stereotypes of Africans, where Africans are straight out of a Tarzan movie. But to the credit of African Americans, they have actively, through organisations like Africa Action and Trans-Africa Forum, agitated on Africa's behalf.

From Mukoma Wa Ngugi's Guardian essay, African in America or African American?
H/T Loomnie

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....before the end of the year. My (free) Christmas gift to you.

I'm usually not a fan of remixes, but I had to give this modern take of "Osondi, Owendi*" by Flavour et. al. a pass since it does pay homage to Chief Osita Osadebe. The beginning skit is cute...the rest of the video - yawn. But then again, this group, while skilled at creating/remixing insanely catchy songs (I find the Anambra dialect used in their songs annoyingly endearing), they are not terribly known for their creativity.

Oh, by the way, my apologies for the screwed up search feature. Something happened when changing the website address. Oh, and yes, you can now find this blog at www.pyoowata.com !!



*It pleases some, it angers others.

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20-minute documentary on "shadeism" below. H/T Clutch.

Shadeism on Vimeo.

I feel like I should be more bothered by this topic, but for some reason, I'm sort off "meh" towards it, and have been so for most of my life. My first encounter with shadeism came when I was five, attending school in Massachusetts and a girl of biracial heritage told me that I could not play with her and her white friends because I was simply too dark. At the time, I could care less, because there were more than enough "dark" classmates to play with (especially this adorable Rasta child, of whom I was completely enamoured with - and of course, like any five year old girl, I displayed my affection by terrorizing him at the playground - I was a bit of a bully back then. So he was my first crush, my second was Michael Jackson...don't judge). It was only when I was older that I realized it was a pathology. But even now, when I encounter such instances of black-on-black discrimination, it hardly fazes me. Like for example, an older relative of mine expressed a desire for her children to wed men of other races in order that they may sire beautiful children (but beyond that, she also has some gripes towards Igbo men, which receives a bit of a "Kanye Shrug" from my end). On another occasion a family friend was lamenting that the others are reticent to discipline their mixed-race four-year-old because of the colour of his skin. Of course, the Nnewi man was not having it, and half-stated/half asked, "This child cannot be more beautiful than me?" Yeah...side eye....not at the instance of shadeism...but rather at the sheer ridiculousness of the question. (Oh, and I'm assuming/hoping that most of my extended family is not aware of my blogging exploits...an aunt was worried that I may get arrested for my opinions, or worse still, not find a husband, because of it. Had to reassure her that it wasn't that serious, yet).

I feel like I should be more aggrieved towards such statements in the same way that I am towards racism. I find that among the African American community, individuals are much more sensitive towards shadeism, while in other communities, such as those represented in this film, expressing a preference for lighter-coloured children has long been normalized.

But, beyond the instances I just mentioned, I feel that overt shadeism may not be as pervasive in the Nigerian community. From my limited personal experience, we tend to denigrate those with blotchy tell-tale signs of chronic skin bleaching, and we extol darker- skinned actresses like Genevieve or Clems Ohameze, who in his day, was known as "black beauty." I think there is an element of "Nigerian pride," which, perhaps in this day and age, trumps the need to adhere to Eurocentric ideal of lighter-skinned beauty. Or perhaps, which is more likely the case, I am trapped in my own, "Black is (unquestionably, regardless the shade) beautiful" bubble.

There are some other bloggers who covered in relation to this film (simply Google "shadeism") - but I have yet to see a Nigerian blogpost on the topic. Though, I have seen a number of them on the politics of hair - which at this point in my life gets a "meh" from me as well.

7

By habit, I always pick up a new book anytime I travel to a new place - even if it is just a couple states over. It's something I started in my teens when I had some access to disposable (or borrowed - still owing some folks) income. Repeated the same thing this time I travelled to the west coast for the first time ever. I think...can't ever say ever since I got in trouble with Canadian customs last year for sneaking across the border in '86. Note, I was barely crawling that year...yeah, a relative "borrowed" my social security number - ah the life and times.

Came to the realization some weeks ago that my paltry book/music collection, save for textbooks and lecture recordings, is crying for some diversity. I have a primarily black library - spanning various corners of the African diaspora - Harlem, Enugu, Kingston, Umtali (Mutare) etc. There's a spattering of brown lit - but again, the same resistance and post-colonial themes. Largely, it's symptomatic of growing up in public high school that zealously guarded the "black is beautiful" mantra and then proceeding to a liberal arts education that offered a buffet-style selection humanities courses for those in the sciences. I grew all too comfortable in books that felt like home.

So this trip, I made the mistake of looking for book that would be representative of this elusive whiteness, you know, like how some would assign Things Fall Apart for a two-week introduction to the African experience. Needless to say, I failed horribly at this assignment.

First, it was an impulse buy at an airport bookshop. Although, I have been lucky, at times, with such on-the-fly purchases, airport shops are largely known for bright, empty magazines and self-help books. Second, I was moved primarily by my pocket and some feigned interest in the environment. You see, there was a shelf dedicated to previously read books - pre-owned novels which were 50% off. Not only was a getting a sweet deal but I was doing my part to save this text from clogging up our landfills. And third mistake - and quite cliched - I judged a book by it's cover. If I was going to read the whitest of white, why not pick up the memoir plastered with with a picture of Julia Roberts on the front?

Yes, I bought the wildly popular Elizabeth Gilbert memoir, Eat, Pray, Love - chick lit made into a chick flick a couple of years ago. Yeah, it was somewhat embarrassing, especially considering that my travel mates had their microbio textbooks in tow (don't know how I forgot mine, but was able to get a hush-hush .pdf copy hookup...whoop whoop!)

While I find Gilbert's story, thus far, refreshingly open and honest, it's a bit too stereotypically white and Western for my liking. And somehow, I empathize. It appeals to that part of my American self that I consciously work to squelch out in the open. Her story represents that part of me that tends to exoticize the other, the one that doggedly personalizes the spiritual to the neglect of the communal, the part of me that in my quiet moments, is fastidiously self-absorbed. Elizabeth Gilbert is my id.

I have yet to finish the book (may hold it off until Christmas vacation, unfortunately - got to memorize those bugs.) I'm praying for a happy ending with this book, though I have yet to put to words what that looks like. But from the reviews I briefly looked through, I doubt it.

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...For yet another musical break. Big fan of Celestine Ukwu, who is my respite when I need a bit of a break from the faster-paced, "noisier," classics from the highlife era. Sharing a personal favorite, "Onwu ama eze" (Death Doesn't Recognize Royalty).

Onwu ama eze.

Other songs from Celestine Ukwu can be found here.
I know there is some unwritten code of blogging ethics which prohibits from from posting two musically related posts back to back, but suffering from persistent bouts of blogger's block. Biko, gbaghara m (please forgive me). If you care to know, I am somewhat active on Twitter.

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As if October couldn't get any better.

She's back! Asa (Asha) that is. I'm probably late. Excited to see her evolution from her self-titled freshman album, to her forthcoming collection, Beautiful Perfection. The album drops October 25th - but her single, "Be My Man," is up on Youtube (H/T Asa Groupies on Facebook).



Not sure how I feel about her new look (a bit cliche***)...but she still remains incredibly adorable in my book. She recently gave an interview to HiMagazine (never heard of it, personally).

On her new style:

Its fun, I think it is part of finding myself because I spent the most of my life while growing taking care of people. I have been responsible for my siblings and so I had to grow up really fast and that took a lot of attention from me because I didn’t care about myself. So going out to various places and events has influenced me. I’m beginning to really like what I see and I tell myself that I’m beautiful and need to take care of myself. Its fun really because I enjoy the growth, I don’t think I have changed I just added more colour...[I'm] letting go of a lot of unnecessary baggage, so you can feel it because I’m happy.

In short, Asa explains that over the past two years, she's been more exposed and is learning to put herself first, all of which should reflect in her latest album.

***December update - Err, yeah, I'm a swagger jacker, and so totally just went and bought the Asa glasses not too long ago. Couldn't help it. But don't we all have a bit of cliche (sorry couldn't find that accent aigu) in us somewhere?

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Quick! Check out the new series at NigeriansTalk.org entitled Nigeria@50. Since last Friday, Nigerian bloggers have been posting their thoughts on Nigeria as she approaches her 50th birthday. From the intro post:

As you can imagine, there are a lot of things to complain about...but we do not want to dwell on the failures. The articles will not write away the failures of the past — as if that were even possible. While acknowledging those failures, they will be forward-looking. In short, we hope to leave the series of articles feeling not only informed, but also inspired.

Check the Nigerianstalk.org website daily for fresh content from this series.

Picture taken without permission (kind of like many others on this site - trying to change my ways) from the photo exhibition, "1960: Nigeria at Independence."