Dear reader, thank you for coming by again. If you’d like to read the first part to this post, please read Identity: A Geographical Perspective.
Sophia in the United States of America
My first home away from home was Santa Monica, California. It was beautiful. I would walk everywhere. Once I saw Keanu Reeves casually walking to an apartment three doors down from me, like he wasn’t Neo from the Matrix. Hahaha!
A lot of people looked at me. It is only recently that I noticed that people usually look at me, and I figure it’s because I’m tall. That is where the Brazilian and Moroccan guesses started rolling in: in Los Angeles County. That’s when I started wondering about my identity on a whole new level, slowly but surely.
My identity crisis culminated eighteen years into my life in the U.S. This is when it became something I had to seriously look at, and decide what kind of action to take. In the early 2000s, I noticed some girls look at me in a strange way (strange to me), when they knew I was with a Black guy. I brushed it off as me seeing things, and it might have been so. I never got the same looks when I dated a White guy or one with my skin color.
In the early 2010s I went to the bank in a predominantly White neighborhood, and was helped by a really nice White man banker. I came back two times later with my husband, who’s Black mixed with Black. I noticed my husband’s whole posture and energy change. He was making himself smaller. He is 6’5″ or so, but it wasn’t just his height he was minimizing. He was making himself non-threatening.
I looked at him curiously, but when I sat with him across from the same White man who had helped me so nicely twice before, I began to understand. The whole thing infuriated me on a level where I couldn’t even say anything. The banker talked to us like we weren’t account holders, like we didn’t belong, like he didn’t have time, and like he forgot how to be as nice as he was earlier that week. It was completely new to me. I couldn’t understand it. Apparently it was the way my husband’s world worked, and I (being …Other and a woman) had never been exposed to it first-hand.
I decided then to open myself up to understanding this world my husband was living in, and that our children might come to live in as well.
The United States Through The Eyes Of A Foreigner
As a foreigner living in the U.S. I feel like an outsider looking in on a very personal family situation. There is so much love, and fear-based hate, and fear-based actions all around. The love should not be ignored, but lately I notice that it is becoming an aspect of the Black/White relationship that isn’t being talked about as much. There is a whole other thing too: I, as a woman with African identity and mixed ethnic heritage, find it super strange when Black women here see me as a disappointment or as a threat. Let me explain. It has taken me SO long to come to face this possibility, and I only bring it up because it has nothing to do with me, I believe, but with an idea.
I have had the pleasure and blessing to be around a lot of people from different cultures and backgrounds. Here in the United States I have been around Black women who have either come to, or are working on coming to a place of self-appreciation and self-worth, and a place where they feel freer to express their African identity and cultures. I don’t seem to get along with the majority of these Black queens. At least not for long-lasting relationships. There has been a small group of them, but by and large, I have remained this Other girl who says she is from Africa but doesn’t look like the African stereotype.
I was MC of this Afrofuturistic event in Columbia, South Carolina once, because this Black King saw my worth before I could even see it. His name is THE Dubber. He’s a rather dope human and musician.
Most people at the event didn’t know who I was, but if you know me, you know I will come say hi with a smile on my face (and in my heart). I will introduce myself and ask you about yourself. I walked into the main room and one of the evening’s artists was there, sitting in a row of chairs. She was a Black girl who was evidently on her journey of finding her magic. I think that’s awesome! Low natural haircut, beautifully moisturized skin, funky outfit, African jewelry, coffee-brown skin. It fit the image of Africa that many people in the United States have. My husband was in front of me so he walked into the room first. She got up, smiled big at him, greeted him and shook his hand, and sat back down. I was right next to him by this point, getting ready to look up again from my planner at the right time, and greet her when she was done greeting my husband, but I guess she didn’t see me. She didn’t even make eye contact with me.
Did you say I could have cut her out of the evening’s schedule? Oh my! You’re such a naughty reader! Haha!
At least she behaved like that to my face, which I appreciate.
I do not pretend to understand the distress of the descendants of enslaved Africans in America. Distress, injustice, disgust, hurt, pain, frustration, trauma, etc…
Yet, I would like to share a perspective from outside the box, and I thank you for lending me your ear.
Power
Power comes with responsibility. A part of that responsibility is to ask what kind of world one wants to live in and what they can do to make it become a reality (if it isn’t already so). With the power that Black people and Brown people, and BIPOC and all marginalized people are sloo-o-o-o-wly gaining, we must ask ourselves this question: what kind of world do we want to live in, and what are we doing about it? I have heard Black friends say they hate White people. Some have said they would never date a White person (some for the sole fact that they would be White, not to do with culture and understanding), some say they won’t teach their kids about anything other than Black excellence and identity. I want to ask…. isn’t that the same kind of biased reality that we are working to get away from? If we start teaching our kids only a part of history, isn’t that history as skewed, but from another viewpoint?
Please consider this: would it be possible for us minorities to not only empower ourselves, but also be empowered by others (if they choose to do so) AND also not disempower others? I understand that if those without power gain it, those with it would have had to relinquish it. That’s fine. But do we have to exclude them entirely like they have done?
If that’s the case, do we know when and how to stop so that we don’t tilt the scales all the way to the other side and miss the point of balance?
We Just Want To Be Understood
I know you don’t know me and can’t verify my intention in saying any of this. I am truly coming from a place of mind and heart in which you and me are the same thing. Whether you believe in a Biblical Adam and Eve, or a scientifically founded story of a set of Eves, or whether you subscribe to the Big Bang theory, or evolution with a different beginning… I don’t know. What I believe is that, scientifically, we are all the outcome of the death of a star, a supernova. The only difference between you, and I, and that tree over there, is how energy and matter is collected (collected: has changed through time to become what it currently is). In truth, we are one.
I also believe we are spiritually connected. So when I ask these questions it is not because I am for any group or identity in particular. It is because I am for all people as one group. One group with varying stories to tell, cultures and traditions to live and share. We will likely always war and fight. We will have defeats and triumphs. In this seemingly pivotal moment in which history is swiftly changing through the use of newer and newer technology, can we decide that we all want to operate based on love? Can we empower ourselves to love ourselves fully? Then we can empower others to love themselves fully.
Can we at least attempt to tell history as factually as it occurred? So that all children of the world know about world history from all viewpoints? The good and the bad, and the understanding that sometimes the (good and bad) sides change. Personally, I am (learning to be) done with proving I belong. I don’t want to assimilate to become American or Black or anything else. I would like to be me. I am African. I have an African nose, and African hair, and African skin. Anything I do is African. LOL. I can’t prove it, you see? It’s kind of a ridiculous notion, now that I think about it after doing that for 22 years of living in the U.S.!
This is a scary post to write, but God knows my intention is to unite people – not take away anyone’s culture or identity – and to make progress without creating an unintended monster on the other side. I hope you understand.
Do you grapple with your identity living in a foreign country? Is this something you are concerned about for your children?
I am a mom amongst some other titles life has fortunately given me. I love photography & the reward of someone being really happy about a photo I took of her/him. I work, I study, I try to pay attention to life. I like writing. I don't understand many things...especially why humans treat each other & other living & inanimate things so vilely sometimes. I like to be an idealist, but when most fails, I do my best to not be a pessimist: Life itself is entirely too beautiful, amazing & inspiring to forget that it is!
Many years ago, when I was still living in South Africa, I was on the organizing committee for a national conference at which Archbishop Desmond Tutu was the keynote speaker. There were about ten of us on the committee, and we were all unspeakably excited at the prospect of an in-person meeting with this great man.
All of us had witnessed in real time the dismantling of Apartheid. Desmond Tutu played a major role in this process, and he helped shape the landscape of post-Apartheid South Africa. He was, without a doubt, one of South Africa’s greatest heroes.
At the time we were putting the conference together, South Africa was still a fledgling democracy. The first democratic election in which everyone had a vote was still a fresh memory, and the nation was in the early stages of its healing. Desmond Tutu was a bright light that all of South Africa’s people looked to for guidance.
On the day of the conference, the committee members were assembled in the room that had been allocated as our centre of operations. This was where the logistics happened, it was where we took our coffee breaks, and it was where we greeted the speakers and presenters.
When word reached us that Archbishop Tutu had arrived in the conference centre parking lot, we arranged ourselves in a line down one side of the room. We knew that Archbishop Tutu would only be there for a few minutes before he was whisked to the auditorium to deliver his speech. Each of us would have the opportunity to shake his hand and have a brief exchange with him.
I was standing beside my friend Dave, who seemed unaccountably nervous. There were little beads of perspiration on his face, and he was jiggling his leg so much that I kept nudging him to stop. As momentous as this occasion was for me and the other committee members, it was doubly so for Dave. He was the only Black person in the room, the only one whose life had quite literally been saved by the demise of Apartheid.
When the door opened and the Archbishop was ushered in, he instantly won all of us over with his grace and charm. He moved down the line of people, engaging everyone in a brief conversation, presenting himself not as a global celebrity but as an equal. When it was my turn, he grasped my hand with both of his. I told him what an inspiration for change he was, and he told me that I had the power to change the world in my own way.
He moved on to Dave, who was standing dead still, looking absolutely terrified. Dave managed to extend his hand for the Archbishop to shake, but he was unable to utter a single word. Archbishop Tutu told Dave he was a trailblazer for the generations to come, and Dave just – stood there. When the silence was on the verge of transitioning from mildly awkward to downright uncomfortable, the Archbishop started moving to the next person.
All of a sudden, Dave blurted out, “You’re a lot shorter than I thought you were going to be!”
There was a beat of stunned silence, followed by a guffaw of laughter from the Archbishop. He shook Dave’s hand again and moved on to the next person.
When all was said and done, I said to Dave, “You had the chance to say one thing, and that was it?”
“I didn’t know what else to say,” Dave said. “Anyway, it’s true.”
It was true. Well, kind of true. Archbishop Tutu was small in physical stature, but he carried himself as if he was ten feet tall. He was one of those people whose presence could fill an entire stadium. We saw on multiple occasions how he could sway the sentiment of an entire nation with just a few words. In a country that for decades was torn apart by racism and government policies designed to pit groups of people against one another, Archbishop Tutu’s message was one of peace and unity.
Desmond Tutu believed in the interconnectedness of all humans. He promoted the message that everyone has value, that the path to peace lies in talking to people whose views differ from our own, and that there is strength in diversity.
As South Africa – and the world – reels from the loss of this great man, we can take comfort in the fact that his legacy will be with us forever. He leaves behind lessons that all of us can teach our children as they strive to make their own marks upon the world.
Kirsten Doyle was born in South Africa. After completing university, she drifted for a while and finally washed up in Canada in 2000. She is Mom to two boys who have reached the stage of eating everything in sight (but still remaining skinny).
Kirsten was a computer programmer for a while before migrating into I.T. project management. Eventually she tossed in the corporate life entirely in order to be a self-employed writer and editor. She is now living her best life writing about mental health and addictions, and posting videos to two YouTube channels.
When Kirsten is not wrestling with her kids or writing up a storm, she can be seen on Toronto's streets putting many miles onto her running shoes. Every year, she runs a half-marathon to benefit children with autism, inspired by her older son who lives life on the autism spectrum.
Final piece of information: Kirsten is lucky enough to be married to the funniest guy in the world.
Connect with her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Be sure to check out her YouTube channels at My Gen X Life and Word Salad With Coffee!
In August 2020, a 29-year-old African-American man named Jacob Blake was shot in the back multiple times by police, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. This incident resulted in Jacob being paralyzed from the waist down. On August 25, 2020, during the protests that followed, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse left his hometown of Antioch, Illinois, and went to Kenosha, Wisconsin. Armed with an AR-15 rifle, he fatally shot two men and wounded a third. Mr. Rittenhouse and the three people he shot were all Caucasian.
During the subsequent trial, Mr. Rittenhouse and his legal team argued that he had been acting in self-defense. Now 18 years old, he has been acquitted of all charges.
I must be honest and share that I was not surprised by the “not guilty” verdict handed down to Kyle Rittenhouse. I have learned through observing numerous courts cases that Caucasian males are seen to be innocent even when they are guilty.
When the judge threw out the gun charges against Mr. Rittenhouse, I knew that he was extending to him the judicial courtesy that so many Caucasian males in his position get. The Judge wouldn’t even allow the three men to be labeled as “victims” although the terms “protester” and “rioter” were permitted.
How can you charge a person with a crime when the weapon involved in the crime basically doesn’t exist and there are no “victims”? This judicial bias that was shown to Kyle Rittenhouse rarely gets shown to non-white males. This directly reflects the fact that even though non-white males represent approximately 29% of America’s population, they represent over 57% of the incarcerated population (Morgan, Smith, 2005).
Though I wasn’t surprised by the verdict, I was still enraged by it. The interpretation of law always seems to lean in the favor of Caucasian Americans, and that same law or rule is enforced fully in the cases of any male that is non-white. According to the United State Sentencing Commission (USSC), non-white males receive, on average, prison sentences that are 20% longer than those of their Caucasian counterparts.
I am enraged that a 17-year-old could walk around with an AR-15 rifle and not be stopped or apprehended by one of the many police officers present. This demonstrates the ongoing systemic racism that continues to plague our country. How are we ever going to correct a problem when the system that governs the problem is the problem?
Sources
Morgan, K., & Smith, B.L. (2005). Victims, Punishment, and Parole: The Effect of Victim Participation on Parole Hearings. Criminology and Public Policy, 4(2), p. 355.
Uggen, C., Larson, R, & Shannon, S. (2016). 6 Million Lost Voters: State-Level Estimates of Felony Disenfranchisement, 2016. Washington, D.C.: The Sentencing Project. Available at:
United States Sentencing Commission. (2016). The federal sentencing guidelines : a report on the operation of the guidelines system and short-term impacts on disparity in sentencing, use of incarceration, and prosecutorial discretion and plea bargaining. [Washington, D.C.?]: https://www.ussc.gov/guidelines/2018-guidelines-manual-annotated
This is an original post for World Moms Network by Dr. Denetria Brooks-James.
World Moms Network is an award winning website whose mission statement is "Connecting mothers; empowering women around the globe." With over 70 contributors who write from over 30 countries, the site covered the topics of motherhood, culture, human rights and social good.
Most recently, our Senior Editor in India, Purnima Ramakrishnan was awarded "Best Reporting on the UN" form the UNCA. The site has also been named a "Top Website for Women" by FORBES Woman and recommended by the NY Times Motherlode and the Times of India. Follow our hashtags: #worldmom and #worldmoms
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Amazon Prime released a series called “Them”. It is set in the 1950’s, and it tells the story of a Black family that moves into an all-white neighborhood in Los Angeles. Watching this show reminds me of the fact that my parents were the second Black family on our street. This was well before I was born but I’ve heard the story all my life.
The female neighbor next door told the other neighbor on the opposite side that since N-words lived there now she didn’t want “their” plums falling in her yard. So the other neighbor cut the plum tree in our back yard down in the middle of the night. My daddy, being who he was, burned the man’s storage shed down and cut his fig tree down. This kind of thing went on for a few years.
By the time I was born, there was another plum tree, fig tree, and storage shed. The neighbor who didn’t want the N-word’s plums in her yard ended up babysitting me after school, and her grandchildren who spent the summer with her stayed in our house and back yard most of the time. We played,fought, and got spankings together too many times to count. We even painted them black with charcoal and dog poop once and all ended up in the bathtub together.
Over the years, TWO men who originally hated one another got older and sickly, but by this time they both had spare keys to each other’s homes in case of an emergency. The man who had cut our plum tree down at one point had the pleasure of cleaning up after my dad after he had soiled himself, and he stayed there with my dad until my mom got home. He also cooked for him on dialysis days.
My dad would sometimes ride his wheelchair down to the other man’s house to take a plate of food my mom had made, or they would have a cup of coffee standing out on the property line they once cursed at each other over.
Both of those neighbors are long gone now. All I have are fond memories of them both. When my brother passed, the male neighbor was the first person to hug and kiss me and tell me he loved me. The female neighbor left me my favorite one of her tea cups that she used to use for sun-tea and allowed me to use for my after school snack. Until the male neighbor was well into his 80’s he helped my mom in any way possible without her having to even ask. His family still sends her greeting cards and gifts from time to time.
The show “Them” is a trigger for many reasons, but from a cinematic perspective, it is very suspenseful, and this can make it easy for us to forget the advice to love thy neighbor. If we all put ourselves in our neighbors’ shoes and committed to truly loving them, imagine how much greater we could become as individuals, families, and communities.
How diverse is the neighborhood you live in? Are your neighbors a big part of your family’s life?
This is an original post for World Moms Network by Disha Ellis. Photo credit to the author.
When I was six years old, my father’s job took us from South Africa to the United States. The year was 1976, and South Africa was reeling from the Soweto uprising, a student-led protest against the Apartheid government that ended in the deaths of at least 176 Black school students, with thousands more being injured.
Being a six-year-old child on the privileged side of Apartheid, I didn’t really know what was going on. I was vaguely aware of something big happening in the news, but I didn’t know what any of it meant. At that age, all I really understood about Apartheid was that Black people only ventured into white neighbourhoods if they happened to work there, usually as someone’s maid or gardener.
When we moved to a quiet suburb of Connecticut, things didn’t seem much different. The small town we lived in was decidedly WASP by nature. Formalized Apartheid may not have existed in Connecticut, but the segregation was just as real. If anything, I had even less contact with Black people in the United States than I ever had in South Africa.
The Connecticut house the writer and her family lived in
My first week of school in Connecticut was uneventful – until the bus ride home one afternoon. What my brother and I didn’t know was that some of the other kids on the school bus were hiding rocks. As we got off the bus, these kids stood up and threw the rocks at us, taunting us for being the bad South African kids. I remember walking from the bus stop to our house under the protective arm of my brother, with blood gushing from a wound on my head.
It took many years for me to understand that as traumatic as that experience was for me, it was a curious embodiment of the privilege that I had grown up with. For us, this was an ugly isolated incident. For Black South Africans back home, being on the receiving end of attacks like that was a part of everyday life. They woke up each morning with no real certainty that they would still be alive at the end of the day.
When we returned to South Africa, I was three years older than when we had left. I was beyond the age of accepting things without question: now I was observing the world around me and asking questions about what I saw.
When my mother was driving me to school one morning shortly after our return to South Africa, we were stopped at a traffic light. As we waited, a police van drove up and parked on the shoulder, where several Black people were walking and chatting to each other. Two police officers jumped out of the van and approached the group. A few of the people showed papers to the police officers and were allowed to go on their way. The rest were forced to get into the back of the van.
“What did those people do wrong?” I asked my mother, as the van drove off, leaving a cloud of desperation in its wake.
“They didn’t do anything wrong,” said my mother. She looked immeasurably sad.
“So – why did the police take them away?”
“Because they’re not supposed to be in this area.”
When I got home from school that day, my mother offered me a fuller explanation. I got a lesson about “pass laws”, a draconian set of rules that made it illegal for Black people to be in white neighbourhoods without documented proof that they were employed by someone there. What I had seen was a typical police arrest of people who were, quite literally, in the wrong place at the wrong time.
As I adjusted to being back in South Africa, I frequently saw these arrests taking place. It bothered me every time, especially in the context of other hallmarks of Apartheid South Africa. The Group Areas Act, for instance, meant that South Africans were allocated areas that they could live in. The land allocated to white people was proportionately far greater than that set aside for other races. This led to chronic overcrowding in most of the Black neighbourhoods, which in turn resulted in a shortage of resources like water and access to healthcare.
From time to time, the government would reallocate land, usually in favour of white people, and whoever was living on that land would be forcibly removed. In many cases, there would barely be time for families to gather whatever belongings they could before bulldozers moved in and destroyed their homes right in front of them.
I was too young at the time to understand anything about politics, or to question why such grave human rights abuses were being allowed to take place. My parents, like other white people of their generation, couldn’t speak out for fear of losing their jobs, and possibly their freedom. But when the wheels of change finally started turning during the 1980s, the vast majority of white South Africans were in full support of reform.
The abolition of pass laws in 1986 was a major turning point for the country. That era also saw an end to the prohibition on interracial marriage, and the desegregation of public facilities such as parks and public restrooms.
There was still a lot of work to be done, though. The fight for change was not over. My aunt, who in earlier days had lost her position as a teacher because she refused to recognize the national anthem of an oppressive government, spoke to me about complicity.
“Every white person in this country who does not contribute to change is part of the problem,” she said.
I carried these words with me to university, where student protests against Apartheid were the norm. I was not a central figure in the protests by any means. I was never the one standing up front with a megaphone and an angry message, but I was there. I was part of several crowds speaking up for reform, demanding the unbanning of Black-led political organizations, calling for equal voting rights for all.
On a hot summer’s day in 1990, when I was in my final year of university, I joined the throng of students who went to witness the release of Nelson Mandela. I couldn’t see much from where I was standing, but that didn’t matter. The intensity of the emotion of that day swept through the crowd like a wave, going back and forth and back again. Strangers clung to each other, sobbing – partly from joy, partly from the pent-up sadness and despair that had built up over decades.
A newspaper headline on the day of Nelson Mandela’s release
To me, the true end of Apartheid happened on April 27, 1994 – the day of South Africa’s first election where people of eligible voting age from all races were allowed to cast a ballot. My parents and I stood in line for eight hours to be part of this momentous occasion.
Those were eight of the best hours of my life. No one minded being in line for so long. Impromptu barbecues sprung up here and there, and everyone was invited. Every now and then, people or groups would break out into song, or start to dance. There were no strangers that day: just millions of people nationwide who were participating in history. For that day, all that mattered was unity and healing.
But the spectre of Apartheid is still very much there. Millions of Black South Africans are still impacted by the damage done by Apartheid rules. The inequities in education will take generations to rectify. Overcrowding from the days of the pass laws persists to this day, along with the associated problems relating to healthcare and access to resources. The poorest 60% of the population, most of whom are Black, own just 7% of the wealth.
My experience growing up as a white kid in Apartheid-era South Africa impacts my life to this day. It is on my mind every time I hear about a Black person in the United States being murdered during a routine traffic stop. It was part of my visceral reaction of grief when George Floyd was murdered. The tears I shed that day were shed for George Floyd, and for the thousands of lives that were taken by Apartheid.
Most of all, it is present in my conversations with my children about race, racism, and white privilege. My husband and I are raising our kids to be agents for change and not bystanders. We encourage our boys to call out racism when they see it, to acknowledge their privilege, and above all, to keep quiet and listen to the voices that really matter – the voices of the people who have been marginalized because of the colour of their skin.
How has systemic racism shaped your view of the world? How do you talk to your children about racism?
Kirsten Doyle was born in South Africa. After completing university, she drifted for a while and finally washed up in Canada in 2000. She is Mom to two boys who have reached the stage of eating everything in sight (but still remaining skinny).
Kirsten was a computer programmer for a while before migrating into I.T. project management. Eventually she tossed in the corporate life entirely in order to be a self-employed writer and editor. She is now living her best life writing about mental health and addictions, and posting videos to two YouTube channels.
When Kirsten is not wrestling with her kids or writing up a storm, she can be seen on Toronto's streets putting many miles onto her running shoes. Every year, she runs a half-marathon to benefit children with autism, inspired by her older son who lives life on the autism spectrum.
Final piece of information: Kirsten is lucky enough to be married to the funniest guy in the world.
Connect with her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Be sure to check out her YouTube channels at My Gen X Life and Word Salad With Coffee!
