If I was to chart a chronology of my education on racism, based on my childhood memories, I would say the racists were my first educators.  Sadly this is not a unique experience.  In my case, it was the National Front who brought the message home – literally.  Within a few days of moving in to our apartment in Hounslow,  we found a Union Jack and the words  “Go home P**i” spray-painted on our door . My parents knew it was the National Front because they initialed the message with the letters “NF and for further clarity, their message was uncensored.

This was not an isolated incident. The harassment continued, it intensified and it metamorphosised into more confrontational and dangerous forms of abuse. I had a sense that what was happening was wrong, not least because my parents would often inform the police but being a child I was more pre-occupied with what was happening at school.

I had just become the new girl at school and one of only two black children. Alison. That was her name; the other black girl. I knew that Alison and I were similar because only Alison and I were referred to as “doo-doo face” by the other children.  Alison and I were the only ones who would stand at the very back of the dinner-time queue, a safe distance apart from all the other children who refused to stand next us because they didn’t want the brown dirt on our skin to rub off on to theirs.

I told my parents about the name calling, not because I knew it to be racist. I just knew name calling was bad. I also told my parents about the children not wanting to stand near us, or wanting to play with us. This was a daily occurrence and my mother’s visits to the school were almost as frequent. In spite of my mother’s involvement the behaviour did not change.

Eventually (though not necessarily because of the racism at home and at school) we moved out of Hounslow, to South London; a new neighbourhood and a new school, both more diverse.

If my telling of all this seems a little disjointed, it is in part to do with my own memory but also a reflection of how, at that young age my mind processed things. I saw no connection between what the National Front’s harassment of my family and the behaviour of my classmate other than that both of these were wrong and that my parents’ did everything they could to tackle both problems. What stuck in my mind, especially in relation to the racism I experienced at school was that my parents insisted that I report every incident to them and my teachers. Even after I told my parents that I was now a “doo-doo faced tell-tale” the message remained the same; don’t put up with it, report it. While my teachers did very little, my parents took action every time I told them.

I do sometimes wonder about the other children who were at my school, the ones who were being racist, what did they learn? What conversations were taking place in their households? While I was learning “don’t put up with it” were they learning “don’t do it”?  Why is it that is often people of colour who have to find ways to deal with and prepare for racism?  I’m not sure what the answer these or to Gunaratnam’s questions are. I am not a parent, and even if I was, I still don’t think I would have an answer.  All I have are the valuable lessons passed on to me from my parents. I should not ignore racism. I do not have to accept racism and even when the act is of resistance is met with further abuse I should not be deterred. Tell someone, challenge it –whatever is in your power to do – but never put up with it.

This means, at least for me, that while the racists may have been my first educators, it is the lessons from my parents that has endured.

—–

Photocredit: A thumbnail image associated with this post appears on the site’s front page.  The picture is from Dominic Jacques-Bernard‘s  (jacquesy_m) Flickr stream and is published under a Creative Common’s license.

It has been a long while since I considered myself a blogger.  So long in fact that even the claim to being a ‘sometimes blogger’ has started to wear thin.  So, forgive me if I am a little rusty.  A lot has happened in the time between my regular blogging and now. To name a few big changes: I got married, co-founded an ICT4D social enterprise and more recently I have returned to study.

These changes undoubtedly affect a person’s perception and opinions and one’s articulation of the same.  And to add to this, I firmly believe that being a blogger is not just defined by what you write but by your interaction with other blogs and bloggers.  To be a true blogger, one, I believe, has to be both a reader of and a writer of blogs. And boy hasn’t blogging come a long way since those early days?

As I read through old posts, they sound slightly different and I question if that voice, way back in 2005 was “really me” and as I began to formulate new posts I was conscious that perhaps my new posts which reflect the changes I have  been through, when read alongside my old posts may not sound “like me”.  I also thought about the changing blogsphere in particular the Kenyan blogsphere and wondered if I my voice would fit in to this new place.

Then I was reminded of an article by Professor Angela P. Harris on race and gender essentialism that I read as an undergraduate; an article which is, for good reason, one of the most cited law review articles of all time.   Harris challenges the idea that individuals speak with one unified voice; instead she suggests, that we all speak with a “welter of partial, sometimes contradictory, or even antithetical” voices.  She refers to this as “multiple consciousness” and states that this consciousness is not a “final outcome…but a process”.  So as I begin my return to blogging I am comforted by the fact that all my posts, both old and new are still a reflection of who I am; an insight into my  “multiple consciousness”.  My blog is “home to both the  first  and  the  second voices,  and  all  the  voices  in  between.”

So this is it…a brief sound check …as I get ready for my return to blogging…

—–

Image Source:  p_a_h via Flickr – reproduced under Creative Commons license

reconnect people’s everyday lives with politics through collecting and sharing stories of when people first became aware of the bigger world around them.

I grew up in a very political household so trying to identify my first memory is complicated. When I look back to my “politically formative years”, which I place somewhere between the ages of 4 and 7 all I see is a kaleidoscope of memories.

Is my first political memory to be found in the pages of my book collection that included titles such as “Nelson Mandela for Kids”, “Harriet Tubman for Kids”?

Or did it start with the curtain call that preceeded my role in the Wazelendo Players’ production of Ngugi Wa Thiongo’s The Trial of Dedan Kimathi?

Perhaps it is in the tune of Bandiera Rossa; a song I learned to sing without so much as knowing what language it was in!

Maybe it lies within the pixels that made up the was the framed poster of Malcolm X in our living room?.

I was about six years old at the time and I was used to going on both leisure and protest walks with my parents, which often ended with me eating an Orange ice lolly (if the weather was nice) or a pack of Opal Fruits and/or Jaffa Cakes. For the most part there was nothing special about this particular walk until we got to Number 10. The crowed stopped and in unison began a call and response chant that went like this:

Caller: Maggie, Maggie, Maggie!!
Crowd: Out, out, out!
Caller: Botha, Botha, Botha!!
Crowd: Out, out, out!!

At the age of six, to be part of the 15,000 people who chanted in unison was an amazing experience. At the time I must admit that I thought we were calling for them to open the door and step outside. It was only as I grew older, as I started to learn more about Apartheid and Thatcherism, that I was able to connect the dots. It was this demonstration that helped me understand that Apartheid as an ideology and as a regime did not exist in isolation. In 2010, as the Conservative Party rolls out its “I’ve never voted Tory before” campaign, I can respond and say,

I’ve never voted Tory because they supported Apartheid

What is your first political memory? Get sharing!
—
With thanks Mark Pack for his LDV post – ‘cos that’s how I learned about this!

Sometimes, you can just hop in the back of someone’s cab and tell them what they’re supposed to do. Other times, you have to let him look out at the ocean for a while.

– Jacob, Lost Season 6

Zuqka’s feature on MamaJunkYard is the literal equivalent of hopping into my cab and telling me I need to get back to blogging. This is what Kamau Mutunga wrote:

Her relationship status is “not on the market.” Unless you’re Thierry Henry. She likes Tia Maria, coffee, purple, travel, family and God, though not necessarily in that order. She hates balloons, pumpkins and prejudices. Her interests are race, gender, sexuality and critical legal theories. Her first pets were rabbits, and she has two tattoos and six body piercings. Bloggers rarely describe themselves with much detail, but there you have a bio peek at Kui, Mrs Cooper or to her blog fans, Mama Junk Yard.

Indeed, Mama Junk Yard’s rants about anything under and over the sun. Kui has lived abroad, but works in Nigeria. From how foreigners talk and silly questions about one’s country. So, her entries are observations of a footloose, uprooted Kenyan. You will learn that “Kubwa” might be Kiswahili for “big” and “Nyanya” is grandmother, but why does it also mean tomato? Well those two are names of places in Naija too. And “well done” doesn’t connote congratulations. It is a greeting. When feeling unwell don’t be shocked when asked “how you body de?” “How far” is not about distance, but “how is it going.” And when someone flashes your phone, don’t call back. They were “just de greet you O!” Mrs Cooper hasn’t been blogging actively, and her archives might give a better impression of Mama JunkYard.

There are few things there that need updating, e.g. I am no longer in Nigeria….but that’s even more reason for me to get back to blogging!

As someone who loves to talk it is only natural that I find myself engaged in the all sorts of conversations. This in turn has exposed me to weird questions, annoying phrases, and strange words most of which I let slip by. There are however a few things that people have said/asked that have had me vowing never to speak again. These are my top three.

1. ‘So, how do you know so-and-so?’
This question can be heard at parties, especially birthday/house parties with the host’s name replacing ‘so-and-so’. The guest who asks this question is usually one who feels that they have known the host that much longer than you and by extension have more right to be there than you have. In the same way one will observe a dog lifting up its leg at every other lamppost as it goes about its daily walk on a familiar route; the guest who asks this question can be seen moving from person to person marking out those faces he or she does not recognise. If this guest stops at you and this is the first question they ask; you are the lamppost.

2. Use of terms of endearments by total strangers
I miss the days when Routemasters filled the streets of London and bus -conductors would struggle to keep their balance as they churned out tickets from what looked like a rather old cash register dangling from their necks. What I don’t miss is how every conductor would conclude their sentence with the words such as ‘love’, ‘sweetheart’ or ‘darling’. I could never understand what it was about asking for a single to Covent Garden that would inspire such affection from someone I did not know. This behaviour is not just limited to bus conductors. I had a Design and Technology teacher who would say things like ‘Alright sweet-pea?’ or ‘How are you doing my sweet and sour?’

As if this is not enough, the use of these phrases is not standardised. So for instance in Yorkshire one can be called ‘love’ by a stranger, in the West Country do not be surprised if someone refers to you as ‘my lover’. Here in Nigeria it is ‘baby’ or ‘babygirl’

What I dislike most about this sort of talk is that it is contagious. I have noticed that I now refer to anyone and everyone as ‘my dear’. Why I do it, I do not know. What I do know is that 99% of the people I use it on are not dear to me. It disturbs me greatly to know that I am part of the problem.

3. Archaic words/Big grammar* used in everyday conversation
I know exactly when my hatred for this behaviour began. It was when a security guard at work said to me;

‘Kui, are you ok? You look ee-MASH-EE-ated’

After he wrote it down for me I discovered the word was emaciated, which according to Mshairi is pronounced ee-may-see-ated. Whatever! The guard meant to that I had lost weight yet what he said to me was that I looked “thin or haggard, especially from hunger or disease.” Was there ever a greater conversation killer?

Since I have been in Nigeria I have heard people speak of ‘paucity of funds’ when what they mean is that they are broke, or ‘my peculiarities’ when everyone knows that is a nice way of saying ‘ I have issues’

While these sorts of words may have a place in written texts or even speeches delivered to a particular audience, in everyday conversation I find it breaks the flow. I end up focusing on the word itself and not what the person is saying. Lord help both of us if t is a word I have never heard of before because whatever story was being told shall have to be interrupted while I ask endless questions about the words meaning and origin.

*Baba Willy’s Pidgin dictionary defines big grammar as ‘long and difficult English words’

———–
Thanks to the Dr for his input on regional variations of the use of the word ‘love’.
Thanks to JKE too for helping me organise my thoughts.

In the wake of what can only be described as one of my country’s darkest moments I have found that being a Kenyan abroad has generated a series of deeply troubling questions from non-Kenyans such as:

Oh you are Kenyan? So what tribe are you/What ethnic group do you belong to?

Or

You are from Kenya? So are you Kikuyu or Luo?

On the surface it is easy to view these questions as innocent enquiries from a non-Kenyan who wants to know more about where I am from. Given the manner in which ethnic differences crept into the dispute over the government’s claim to power I know all to well that these questions are anything but innocent.

The first question, in my view is a personal question and should have no place in a discussion between people who barely know each other. Furthermore it rests on the assumption that there is a simple response. For instance, there are many Kenyans who do not belong to one ethnic group or tribe and the question suggests that a single tribe response is the desired answer.

In the case of the second question, it is equally personal but it is more offensive than the first because it reduces my country to a two-tribe nation. It ignores the existence of every other Kenyan who does not fall into either the Kikuyu or Luo ethnic group. It also assumes that one can not fit neatly into both ethnic groups.

That said, what really angers me about both questions is that most people who ask will then use whatever response I give as a basis to project their own limited knowledge of the political and ethnic situation in Kenya.

When I opt to answer these sorts of questions I simply state ‘Kikuyu.’ Each time I have done so my response has been met with statements like:

You must be happy with the result then

or

Ah! It is your man/brother who is in power

even this:

You guys really rigged this election

In single sentence a person has taken my cultural/ethnic identity and formed an opinion about my political allegiance, placed blame upon me for the outcome of the election and worst of all suggested that despite the fact that my country is in turmoil…I am pleased.

The most frustrating part for me is, I am still not sure who/what I should be angry at:

Should I be angry at those individuals who believe that I, who can not speak a word of Kikuyu, would place such importance on my ethnic identity to the extent that I would not only stake my right to vote upon it but forsake my national identity because of it?

Is it fair to direct my anger at the Western media who oftentimes spoke of and wrote about Kenya and Rwanda in one breath/sentence thereby blurring the distinction between a nation disappointed in the outcome of a flawed election and a group of people who value ethnicity more than nationality?

What about those who willingly took part in the destruction of our people, our country, our lives and our homes, maybe I should be angry at them?

Perhaps those who made a mockery of our democratic right to be governed by the leaders we elect, who betrayed the trust we placed in our electoral system…maybe this should be the root of my anger?

I am not content with directing my anger, in equal measure, at all of the above because it is not that simple. I am not content with being angry because it is not productive.

I will have to work something out because when people who can not find Kenya on a map, who do not know the difference and distance between Ghana and Kenya, who can’t accept that we too can fly from our country to over 40 destinations worldwide on Kenya Airways…. when these people start telling me about my ethnic identity and what it means…I get really angry…

Getting the laptop to Nigeria was not easy. I was due to fly immediately after the UK terror alert that had resulted in many travellers being issued transparent plastic bags to carry their hand luggage, so in preparation I went and bought a laptop rucksack which was apparently the right “carry-on” size. I say apparently because the woman working at the British Airways check-in desk the day I was due to fly was of the opinion that my rucksack was way too big. Unfortunately for me, those metal tray things by the check-in desk that let you determine if one’s bag is the right size supported her opinion. I was not keen to check-in the old laptop so I decided to buy one of those pull-trolley things that one often sees cabin crew dragging along. Still the item was too big. The BA woman, sensing my determination to carry the laptop on board informed me that BA did have bags available.

I wish I had taken a photograph of the bag, which is no longer in my possession. It was one of those of raffia/plastic-chequered bags that many African/Caribbean families in the UK use as laundry bags. My brother told me that these bags are called “Ghana-must-go” bags and that certainly appears to be what everyone in here calls them. Sokari has a photograph of similar bags on her blog. I say similar because the one I was given was incredibly tiny; like a medium to small handbag. I am actually tempted to call it cute had it not clashed, both in colour and in style, with what I was wearing.

The bag was blue, red and white. I was wearing black trousers, a white top, brown shoes and should have been carrying a matching brown hand bag (which was now emptied of all its contents and squashed into one of my suitcases – the very same suitcase that arrived in a Abuja more than a week after I did!) The extent of my higgledy-piggledy look was brought to the fore when the man at the Duty Free counter took one look at my bag, pulled out an extra-large duty free bag and dumped my ‘Ghana-must-go’, laptop and all inside. As he handed the bag back he gave me a look that said ‘it’s ok…your secret is safe with me!’

Upon reaching Naijaland I discovered that my work computer was not where I expected it to be i.e. on my desk in my office. Neither was my desk for that matter, which at the time made perfect sense because I hadn’t been assigned an office. The old laptop which no doubt was sulking after suffering the indignity of being carried in a bag that lacked the necessary cushioning and support that it was accustomed to became both my work and home computer. I reassured both the laptop and myself that this was only a temporary measure but by January 2007, despite getting an office and desk, I still didn’t have a computer.

By this time the laptop had gone from old to ‘one foot in the grave’. It could no longer serve as a ‘portable computer’ because one slight move would result in the machine turning itself off. It would then take a further five minutes of twiddling with the power cord and coaxing it to stay attached to the computer. As the battery never seemed to charge, I did consider taping the power cord to the laptop but then I remembered that the power cord was a replacement of the previous one that had caught fire around the part that connects it to the computer. Aside from the laptop’s in ability to stay on for more than 30 minutes at time, there was the start-up issue (it took 20 minutes to start-up) the lack of multi-tasking capability (the machine could run no more than one application at time), failing USB ports, broken DVD drive … basically the machine was barely functioning.

In mid-February, the Dr and I decided that it was time to get a new machine, which he would bring to Abuja when he came to visit in March. I knew what I wanted; a black MacBook and by the end of February the BlackBook was sitting in a box in Lancaster awaiting its trip to Naija.

There is common saying about buses – you wait for hours and then two arrive at once. Well the same can be said about computers (in this case at least) because two days before the Dr was due to arrive my desktop; complete with printer and a back-up power supply unit was delivered to my desk!

So here I am six months into my stay – I finally have a machine in the office and a machine that I can use at home for blogging, Skype, playing games, listening to music…all at the same time. All I need to do now is get accustomed to using a Mac, which I recently discovered does not have a delete key.

I never thought that my mum would die so soon after moving to Nigeria. My family in UK and Kenya worried over how I would take the news given that I was in a new country almost all alone. I say almost because even though I did arrive in Nigeria alone certainly by the time I was leaving for Kenya to attend the funeral I knew I had some solid friends in Nigeria. I had barely known them for a month but each one of them stood by me in ways that I could never have imagined. Likewise when I arrived in Kenya I was touched by the outpouring of empathy, compassion and love extended to my family by all our friends.

Right now I am blogging from Kenya. I was in two minds about making this trip because as much as I wanted to see my family I was unsure how we would deal with a Christmas without mum. I am thrilled I made the trip. It hasn’t been easy but just like the last time there have been friends on hand to see us into the New Year. In a strange way this has been one of the best holidays I have had and I believe my brother and sisters are of the same view.

So as I head back to Abuja and as we work our way through 2007 I want to thank each and everyone of you who has taken time to support my family. So many of you were friends before mum’s passing and now I count you as family. To those of you who were strangers you are now friends. I wish you all the very best for the year ahead. May you all have more of those instances of pure joy and in the event that life throws you an unexpected event I pray that I can be a good a friend to you as you have been to me.

The Lancashire sea-side resort of Blackpool is home to an Eiffel Tower inspired structure imaginatively named “The Blackpool Tower.” Standing at 518 ft 9 in tall (158 m) the Blackpool Tower is a great place to view the Lancashire coastline. In particular one of the lower platforms contains a glass floor which, while not advisable for those who suffer from a fear of heights, is a wonderful way to see the streets below. The people and cars really do look like ants! When the Dr and I visited Blackpool we told that we must attempt “the leap of faith” i.e. jumping onto the glass flooring. I am not ashamed to admit that I fell into the “O ye of little faith” category – I did not jump!

With hindsight I realise that it wasn’t faith I lacked; it was courage and the “leap of faith” title attributed to jumping onto the glass flooring was/is a misnomer. A leap of faith after all is defined as the act of believing in something without, or in spite of, available empirical evidence.

In the case of the glass floor at Blackpool Tower; there is empirical evidence to support the claim that jumping onto the glass floor will not cause you to drop to your death. It may not be readily available but certainly the engineers responsible for the structure could provide a series of calculations that prove the glass floor could withstand the “jumping weight” of a human being. The idea that jumping on the glass will lead to fall straight through is nothing more than an illusion.

It was only recently, November 13th 2006, to be exact, a month and a day after my mother died that I truly understood what it means to take a leap of faith. Since October 13th I have been told by many people that “things will get better,” “it will be ok, just give it time, or “it won’t hurt so bad after a little while.” From the time I left Kenya, a week after the funeral, to return to Abuja I sought proof to support these statements. Reluctant to go back to doing the things I enjoyed and talking with the people I love because all they did is remind me of a time when mum was alive. A time that I could say that though my mum was in coma she was still alive, we could still see her, touch her and speak to her. Happier times. A time that had gone forever and would never ever come back.

So here I am writing this blog post. I don’t want to write it because with mum’s death came this invisible line that marks everything in my life. Things, events, people, everything seems to neatly fit into one of two categories: those before mum’s death and those after. For a month I have tip-toed on that line. Not wanting to interact with those things that fall into former category for the reasons explained in the paragraph above and equally not wanting to cross over into the latter because I feel that, in spite of all the messages of “things will get better” I am convinced that they won’t. Yet I am writing this post because I know that the line is nothing more than illusion. Irrespective of how I feel the world did not come to standstill on October 12th 2006; it was for all intents and purposes just another day, as was October 11th I am writing this post because even though I have no proof that things will get better; I have to believe that they will.

So this post here; this is my leap of faith.

Hopefully tomorrow this same faith will empower me to respond to the lovely emails I received….and to write a thank you post…and to do all those things that I have been scared to do…

I hate them.

Perhaps hate may be too strong an adjective but commas and their correct use have become my biggest bugbear.

I put it down to the fact that I speak very quickly. Not always, certainly never in a formal or professional capacity. In an informal setting, those who have heard me speak will confirm that every word I utter merges with the next. No full stop to separate my over running sentences. Speaking at the speed of light, as it is called by some members of my family, does have some advantage; there is no better way to repel a person than to waffle endlessy about useless facts at a pace so fast that all they can hear are abunchofjumbledupwords. They immediately walk away baffled and afraid to ever speak to me again.

Yet like most things in life, this trait does have its disadvantages. The speed of my speech is ultimately governed by the speed at which the thoughts in my brain travel. The same is true of anything I read, especially when reading silently, I barely notice punctuation marks. Thus when I sit to write a blog post I often do so with very little punctuation. Upon completion of the post I read it aloud and attempt to insert the relevant full stops commas and whatever else is missing.

This method while useful is flawed. Firstly it can only be used when I am blogging from home, or any other location that enables me to engage in what is essentially talking to myself. Secondly, try as I may, I can only read the post aloud at two speeds. One speed being my normal speaking speed, which defeats the object since my speech pattern cares little for the apparently natural breaks in conversation. The other speed is my attempt at mimicking what 99% of my friends and family would consider normal. The end result, to my ears at least, is something that sounds rather ghastly and takes me back to the days when the Walkman was the ‘in’ musical accessory. At this supposedly normal pace I sound exactly how a tape played through a Walkman would sound right before the battery died. E v e r y s i n g l e l e t t e r i s d r a g g e d o n a n d o n a n o n until it becomes impossible for me to work out where the punctuation marks should be placed.

So conscious am I of my grammatical shortcomings that I either use very short sentences or I rely on a tactic which while being grammatically incorrect does make me feel slightly better; once I have completed my post I simply insert a comma at random intervals making sure it is at least three words away from the nearest full stop.

What vexes me the most about this whole situation is that we who suffer from commaphobia are not taken as seriously as other grammatically challenged groups. Take for example those who are yet to learn how and where to place an apostrophe. They can rely on The Apostrophe Protection Society to set them straight and instead of being ridiculed for the inability to correctly use an apostrophe, their misuse is rewarded by giving it the cuddly and friendly sounding title ‘Greengrocers’ apostrophes.’

There is no justice in this world!