Nationalism As Alternative To Racism, By ‘Tope Fasua

Racism is alive and well no matter what the world says is the situation. Flying recently through the United States (which I don’t do often) I noticed one thing, which may be an unwritten creed. Black people are made to sit together, and usually around clusters on airplanes. I saw situations where particular black men or women were given rows of three seats while white people squeezed together on other seats. I felt sorry for some of the black people, until I checked myself and realised I too was also racially profiled. Seemed like the other black people are used to it, but for me, comind from Afrika!, it was a bit odd that people should give me a wide berth. I then recalled traveling from Atlanta to New York some years back only to find myself sharing a row with the only other black man on that flight – a Liberian. I wondered then about the odds, but now I know these things are done deliberately.

There are many difficult situations in this life that we ought to apply our minds to, but we seem to be applying the mind less and less these days. This is probably one of those situations. This practice of racial profiling has become ingrained in the aviation/tourism industry worldwide. We should ask questions. Can we find out who exactly is complaining? Who does not want to sit next to people whose colours are different from theirs? Which socio-psychological report are these guys who profile people working with and do those reports have a valid basis? Is it black people who have objected to sitting next to other people or white people who feel they will be ‘stained’ by the skin colour if black people sit next to them? Whatever it is, this cannot possibly be a mainstream feeling, in that people who harbour such extremist feelings are usually in the minority, yet the practice has been mainstreamed. Why would people be racially profiled even at the most innocent of places? Still, it dredges up this largely American thing; agreed since Jeffersonian times, that if a tiny stain of ‘black’ blood was to be found in a person, no matter how ‘white’ they look, they are black. Black people have never complained as our ranks swelled. Tiger Woods, born of a black father and Asian mother, is also not Asian. He is black. See? These days on the internet we see articles like “You Won’t Believe these Celebrities are Black”. Most of the celebrities have no resemblance to Africans but the reference is to that ‘stain’ of black blood in their history. That is quite remarkable – that people will be so categorised in this manner in the year 2016!

I don’t believe people detest interacting with each other along racial lines. Many times, the conclusion of a research is heavily tainted by the biases of the researcher. So whoever is behind the research that airlines and aviation staff rely on, that says people like to cluster according to the colour of their skins, is simply a racist. On a queue, I stood behind a relay team for some university in the US and watched how – black and white – they all bantered as friends. Why would some airline official then split them up and colour-code them at will at some point? No one is speaking up about this, but someone has to.

I have always had this problem with the black/white dichotomy anyway, even though when I raise such issues among ‘intellectuals’, they seem not to believe there is a problem. But there is. We now live in a world where black is white and white is black. Does that not say we have lost integrity? Imagine a Barack Obama – almost white in colour and in fact whiter than some ‘white’ people I have seen – being categorised as black? What then is white and what is black? Is it the texture of one’s hair; whether straight or nappy? Why should hair texture matter in a world run on ideas? For a second, imagine that awkward moment when a growing child of three, four or five is going to come to terms with the fact that though his skin colour is brown, or close to orange, he/she accept that he or she is ‘black’? Imagine that child wondering how black comes into the entire equation? There is this picture of Barack Obama, charming outgoing president of the US, bent over in the White House, with a little ‘black’ boy touching his hair to confirm if really their hair has the same ‘nappy’ texture. As much as the confirmation of Barack’s ‘nappy’ hair would likely propel that child to achieve anything he aspires to for himself, the fact that the boy found it necessary to touch Barack’s hair to be sure that he and the president were the same ‘species’ means that he has already been thrust into the realm of racial discrimination. Why? In the year 2016?

Is every child ‘broken’ at some point, just like a horse would be, but this time psychologically? Is every ‘black’ child told a story of how the ‘white’ man conquered us all and how we were and are still savages, bearing the colours depicted in Tintin cartoons? Does someone explain to them that we all looked like Apes until modernisation made us look better? What is the story?

And for the ‘white’ child who sees that his skin is closer to pink or cream, how is he moved to the other extreme and made to believe he is as white as snow? Is there a lesson in superiority passed across to make him/her feel like the master of the universe?

I believe the basis of global extremism is this idea of ‘black man’ vs ‘white man’. Nobody is quite totally black. Most ‘black’ people are actually quite brown in colour. Most whites are pink, sallow or cream colored. We used to have two categories before; the white man and the ‘coloureds’. Maybe that was a more accurate categorisation but it still separated human beings based on colours. Yeah, we live in a colour-coded world, more so in ‘developed’ countries, especially in the USA. Every colour stands for something; pink for girls, blue for boys. The artist called Prince just died. He tried to break the barriers. He was effeminate, wore lace and high heeled shoes for he was short. But he was not gay. He tried to say that people should not be batched like sheep based on their looks, in his own way. In Africa, we really don’t judge people based on their looks, dressing and choices, and I can say for a fact that ‘black’ people don’t mind mixing with other races. Matter of fact, we like mixing. And it would actually make for a better world if people were given opportunity to interact and understand each other.

But I’m afraid there is a core of supremacist ‘white’ people who feel condescended if made to unwillingly interact with black people. Those are the people we need to engage with and appeal to. They should not judge the majority with the missteps of the few. ‘Black’ people should not be avoided as if they are prone to aggressiveness and violence. There are good and bad people from everywhere, and here in Africa, we are indeed working on improving ourselves. Really. If not officially, but by interactions on social media and elsewhere.

Another way this subtle racism plays out in developed countries is through the idea of indicating one’s ‘race’ on employment and other application forms. Why should race and colour matter? That field on the form where they ask you to indicate whether you are Black African or Black Carribean, or White, or Asian, is not used for anything else, but to profile people and subtly discriminate against them. In many HR departments, the computer screens out people in droves based on this race issue, irrespective of stated capabilities and qualifications. It is certainly not to ensure ‘diversity’.

My deeper concerns about this black/white business is that the words mean opposite things, yet we are all human beings, not opposite to each other. Why choose two extremes of the spectrum? Why choose black and white when actually the enture world and the people who dwell in it, are made of shades in-between? BLACK does not mean anything good. It means things like bad, evil, unfortunate, dirty, shady, crooked, deviant, sinister and such like. WHITE, on the other hand, means holy, straightforward, fortunate, clean, honest and so on, irrespective of the fact that there are good and bad people from every ‘race’. Who did this to the world?

So, in the spirit of Martin Luther King’s admonition that people should not be judged by the outward appearance of the container, or the colour of their skins, but by the CONTENT OF THEIR CHARACTER, I would suggest that the United Nations consider abolishing the concept of race, all over the world – at least for official interactions. I know it’s a long shot, but I’ve always been a person who expresses himself no matter what. The current system is destructive, divisive and… sinister.

Let each man be identified by the country he hails from. Let a Nigerian be a Nigerian, an Indian be an Indian, and American, be an American – whether black or white. I don’t see how this will hurt the world, but it will bring us together more. Let us create a level playing field for everyone in the world, even as we retain some ‘badge’ for people to carry if they deem necessary. Let that badge not be the colour of their skins but the nations they hail from. Even today, as some people in Nigeria fight along tribal lines, all that matters to the world is the passport we carry. That is enough identity. Let us give the world a chance.

But for starters, when next at check-in, especially in an airport abroad, tell them they don’t necessarily have to batch you with your ‘type’. Tell them your ‘type’ are all good peoples of the world and you like to network with such people. It sure matters, for the sake of your children at least; no matter how much money your have. Something is stymying the cross-fertilisation of minds and ideas. That is the truly sinister creature.

‘Tope Fasua, an Economist, author, blogger and entrepreneur, can be reached at topsyfash@yahoo.com.