The above statement was used by the leader of a group I was with to introduce me, two other white women associated with MCC, and the male MCC service worker seconded to his programme. I was hungry, tired, hot, and already annoyed when the statement was made, so my reaction was probably greater than normal, but that one would offend me even on a good day. I confronted him about the statement away from the group but seemed to only confuse this man about why his introduction would bother me. After all, we are white, and the oil tycoons he was introducing us to had asked "who are the whites?" That I should feel excluded was an utterly foreign thought to him. That I wouldn't appreciate being pointed out as different and special and treated as his own special property also slipped through the cultural translation gap. The next day, I processed my feelings about this experience a bit more in my journal.
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Oh how it irks and frustrates and annoys and tires me to always be noted as different, special, outside. Mostly, I shrug off the children constantly pointing and calling out. But day after day, to always be so obviously different--is indeed very difficult. And made so much worse when it is someone we are working with, an adult who as had extensive experience with bazungu, who chooses to point out and make issue of our difference. Coming from someone in authority, that makes me feel even more excluded, even more outside, even more different, and with no hope of ever being conceived as just another person. This has been one of the more difficult aspects about spending this month in Hoima.
In my village, I have become a member of the community, part of the congregation, just one of the teachers. Walking through Bukoto, people regularly greet me and call out to me, but they do so knowing me, knowing my names, knowing where I live and what I do--they don't just single me out and make assumptions and call out to me because of my skin colour. I look forward to returning home--yes, home--to Bukoto soon.
And I look forward to returning to the US, where I won't always be different, won't always stand out (at least for my skin colour), and won't always have to act and speak on behalf of everyone who is white, while also having to fight and react to layer upon layer of stereotypes about whites. In short, to be sincerely honest, I do sometimes look forward to returning to the anonymity of being white in a society where white is still the majority. It's just easier.
To always be identified not as an individual personal self, but as a representative of whites in general, is exhausting and overwhelming. It tires and frustrates me, and while I can usually let it slide off my shoulders like water, it is not so easy when I am already tired, sick, uncomfortable, or feeling lonely. It is difficult to just ignore the sense of exclusion and being outside the group day after day after day. Sometimes, it makes me want to retreat, to hide, or, as in this case, to directly confront the one who adds that final heavy straw.
Being experienced first, most, and primarily, as "white" denies me the ability to be known as an individual, as me, as Kristine Nakaweesi Amooti. It takes away part of my identity, stripping me of any claim to self-hood, and reducing me to a single physical quality (and that not even one I would have previously considered a core component of my personal identity).
I have been thinking, and this came up a bit in conversations as we watched the inauguration, that perhaps this is somehow like the experience of blacks in the US. To always be identified as "African Americans," never just as "American." We discussed it in terms of Obama, who will always be known as the first African American president of the US. He will never be measured in history primarily by his gender, political party, or personal history, but first and foremost, always by his race.
I have heard African Americans saying before how marginalising it is to always be considered not first as an individual, but as a black. To feel as if they are always having to speak on behalf of all blacks and to fight against layers and years of stereotypes that whites hold about them simply because their skin has a darker pigmentation. How they wish for the chance to be known first, mostly, and primarily as an individual person.
Granted, I am not disempowered here in the ways that many blacks still are in the US, but I think I am getting at least a bit of the sense of the experience of being on the opposite side of the social majority. It is not that I necessarily want to become black, though somedays, I imagine it would be easier if it were so. Really, it would be nice to walk down the street and not be singled out automatically as different and strange.
Regardless of how well I assimilate into my community, how fluently I speak Luganda, how confidently I learn to wear a gomesi or dance the traditional dances--I will still always be considered and labeled immediately as different. In that way, I think the challenge and frustrations could increase the longer I live this way.
I dream of true diversity, of multi-cultural integration, where each and every person is respected and valued and experienced not only or primarily as a member of this or the other group, but rather--and foremost--as an individual person.
14 years ago
