I recently ran across a post on Tumblr that had me so enraged I had to sit down in a corner and think about life for a few minutes. I just had to center my mind, body, and soul because the anger that was coursing through my body was enough to unalign my chakrahs or whatever the hippies are calling it these days. I had to get my "woosah" on. You ever been so mad you turn into Sinclair from "Living Single" and "woo woo woo" yourself? Just step outside yourself for a second and look at your life in relation to the planets and moons and galaxies before you slap someone or become a danger to yourself?
Yeah. That was my life. And what, you ask was the post that had me so up in arms?
Photo credit: David Margules
Now, chile...when I tell you this picture alone was enough of an affront to my everyday wellbeing...the text accompanying this visual travesty was just...well...:
"When people ask me “Why do you never where shoes?”
I say:
“What would you trust trust? 2 million years of evolution or 40 years of commercialism and podiatry.”"
THIS IS THE STUFF THAT PISSES ME OFF ABOUT AMERICANS. AMERICA IS THE LAND OF SHOES.
BABIES wear shoes before they can even walk. They have shoes for staying at home, for the garden, for the shower, even for the ocean. AMERICANS BURY PEOPLE IN SHOES. Think about that shit. You're born, they put shoes on you. You die, they put shoes on you!
Why?! Because they can! Because God has given them the chance to. People back home are tying together plastic bottles and rubber tires to have something to make the walk to fetch water a little easier, and here people are rebelling against commercialism and sanitation by refusing to wear shoes.
They even have signs that warn people that they must wear shoes or they won't be served. When was the last time you went home and people without shirts and shoes were just milling about the stores and restaurants?! Nobody has to be told there to properly dress up before going out.
When now their feet become hardened and uncomfortable, when they cut and scrape them and have to deal with sores and wounds and infections, when it takes them multiple scrubbings to return their soles to anything resembling clean, no one can say I didn't warn them.
Melanin-deficient Americans have this idea in their heads that a supposed "third-world" way of living is somehow rustic, exotic and desirable. They've convinced themselves that a proper penance for their privilege is donating 67 cents to an organization that will adopt, train and feed a foreign child for them (while still keeping them in their same squalor and general area, of course) and then adopting select elements of that child's background. They'll "feed the children" themselves all the way to the nearest Starbucks' and then become enraged when this vehicle of American capitalism and commercialism sends them back to their penthouse apartments to find proper footwear before entry. They'll rail against the system and denounce "the Man", tweeting furiously from their Apple devices with an anger so white-hot you might even see a bit of steam escape their ears if you look close enough.
To say it's ironic would be a gross understatement.
In America, barefoot is a political statement. In Africa, barefoot is a unfortunate mark of circumstance. They're running towards what we're running from, but don't have the good sense to look back and ask why we're heading in the other direction.
I remember being accosted in a Starbucks’ one day after the
barista holding my drink mauled my name to announce that my Frappuccino was
ready. “Oh my gawd, that is SUCH an interesting name!” one white woman in
billowing skirts (yes oo, skirts plural) and smelling of patchouli gushed, as
she turned away from the whole wheat, whole grain, free trade, preservative
free, gluten free, taste free bagel she was stuffing into her mouth.
“Where are
you from?” she asked, mouth full of food. (I always wonder, are white people so
wrapped up in everyone else’s otherness they forget themselves? They seem so
unaware, talking with mouths full of food, eating during meetings, and
unwrapping noisy wrappers on telephone calls. Do they think about these things
or are they just things we, as immigrants and other “others” concern ourselves
with? My mother would have a fit if I spoke to anyone with even a piece of gum
in my mouth.)
“Uh, the South End,” I replied, knowing, but refusing to
give the answer she wanted. “No, but like where are you from?” she pressed, as
if pinpointing my birthplace would somehow help her wash down her fiber filled
breakfast. “I don’t get your meaning,” I responded, wishing she would just ask
why I wasn’t white, which was to me, essentially her point.
“She means are you like African or something?” her (probably only) Black friend
piped in, before now hidden from view in her voluminous kente cloth…shroud…for
lack of a better word. My god, this woman had draped herself in the biggest piece
of basic black, yellow, and red kente and doused herself in the strongest
perfume she could find, probably because it was labeled “African musk” or
something. She reminded me of that scene in Tamra Davis' movie CB4, where Allen Payne shouts, “I’m Black y’all! I'm Black y'all! And I'm Blackety Black and I'm Black y'all!” She
probably listened to Lady Blacksmith Mambazo and Malcolm X on her iPod before
she fell asleep in her ikea bed. Maybe she gave herself the Black Power fist in
the mirror every morning.
“I don’t see why it’s any of her business, but yes. I am,” I
responded, unsure of just how to take on this new conversational partner…in
this conversation I didn’t want to have. “I’m Nigerian,” I said, looking around
for the door as my drink slowly melted in my overheating hand.
“Oh, I feel that,” she said, bobbing her head
enthusiastically as if I had asked her a question. Blonde tipped dreadlocks
flew in every direction. “I love Africa man, the culture is just so…rich, ya know?” she
went on. I didn’t know what she felt. I have no idea what culture she
was talking about. But with a sick, perverse curiosity, I decided to ask, “Yes,
it is. Where have you visited?”
“Oh, nah. I haven’t been to the motherland just yet,” she
said meekly. “But I knew a girl from Zimbabwe in high school, and my life
partner’s life giver is from South Africa.”
I stared at her as if she had three heads. What kind of code
was she talking? Life partner life gini? She pulled up a picture on her phone
and thrust it towards me, “He went back with her last year and sent me
pictures.”
Pinching myself for engaging, I looked down at her phone. My
brow furrowed as I searched the photo for a life sorcerer or whatever she
called it. “These are white people on safari kwa,” I murmured, sure she had
shown me the wrong picture. “Yah,” she replied, “isn’t it so cool! Or…well,
you’re probably used to it, being from there and all.”
I drew back quickly, cramming my empty hand into my pocket
to keep from yanking her head out of her yansh. Why do people always think Africa is a neighborhood? As if I can cross Nigeria street and enter Uganda compound. Safari is never going to touch Nigeria. The first time I saw a lion was in Boston.
“Is it true you guys eat goats
and bugs and stuff? My home girl dated a guy from Nigeria and he ate cow’s
stomach! I could never eat none of that. Too weird,” she exclaimed as she
wrinkled her nose.
“Are you a vegetarian or something?” I asked, trying to keep
the anger out of my voice.
“Nope, I just don’t eat weird food, hehe. Regular ole American
food for me, I’m not much of adventurous eater” she explained.
As I drove home that day, assaulted with fast food
billboards and radio commercials announcing the latest grease-laden specialty,
I began to think.
I really find it puzzling that
people find it so easy to pick and choose what they want from African cultures.
Shaki no fit pass your lips but you can use dudu osun to wash your face and
shea butter to oil yourself. Egusi never enter your compound, but you fi enter
McDonald’s in “ethnic” and "tribal" kente hipster head tie.
Injera is strange, but Ronald
McDonald’s clown self can piece together scraps of mystery meat and package it
as a chicken nugget and people will sell their children for a bite. They came out with a fish nugget a few months back and I bet money people would be
more willing to eat that cobbled together excuse for fish than to put a bit of stockfish
in their mouths.
I don’t know man, when it comes
to food, I’d rather grab a piece of fresh goat meat than a slab of genetically
modified beef. They’re nuking and modifying and copy and pasting the heck out
of American foods, and people continue to eat it.
I’m NOT saying I don’t understand
any of the reasoning behind it (because I do), all I’m saying is, I’d be a
little more cautious putting something in my mouth that comes from the kitchen
of the unknown. It might taste good upfront, but it’ll wreak havoc on your
insides.
