I Feel Sorry for that Little White Boy

If a ten-year old white boy crosses the street when he sees me; and then breaks into an athletic run after cutting the corner, I always laugh my head off. It never bothers me. I just feel sorry for the little boy. However, I feel sorry for the great disservice being done to the boy.

I wish I could sit with the boy and explain to him a word or two about myself and where I come from. I can’t call the boy for that’d invite the unspeakable. However, I have an avenue other people don’t have. I’m a writer, and I can reflect on such incidences. I feel sorry for the boy for he’s being denied the richness of humanity; the capacity to know the mysteries of humanities different from his.

He could simply understand that in my culture elders, like teachers, can’t be called by their first names; or that I’m Kuir Ajah (not Kuir Garang) when I visit my mother’s family; or that women don’t take their husbands names in my culture. The little boy would want to know the ‘whys’ of all these and he’d be amazed and enriched. But the little white boy is being denied this enriching experience.

He’s being denied the beauty of South Sudan; its people, its culture. The boy could benefit from the richness of Jiëëŋ’s family structure and communal philosophies.

From his own family’s indoctrination, he sees me as dangerous. However, he’s being denied the chance to realize that I have thoughts and mode of thinking he’s not able to get from his family and society.

However, it’s not only the little white boy who’s being denied the chance to learn and understand the supposedly dangerous me.  While the boy takes his fear and indoctrination at face value, his parents don’t. If the parents are conscientious enough, they’d feel bad and burdened by the guilt. But how’d they get rid of that guilt? They’ll have to get close to people who’d help them understand.  They can't come close to me because I'm dangerous!

Their question would be: “What’s the point?”

The uneasiness in the little white boy isn’t hatred. It’s innocence manifested as fear or uneasiness. However, I can’t be so confident about the parents' state of mind.  It could be hatred, but I don’t have enough to conclude it as hatred that'd trickled down to the little boy from the parents.

It could be something they see in the media. If all they see in the media about people like me is always violence, then I feel for both the parents and the little boy. Their fear  has grounding, at least! However, the parents have enough brains to go beyond the fear and understand something; something about the African Person!

This uneasiness is what Christopher Fox tried to understand in The Pipers and the First Phase. It’s the same thing that Angelina tried to understand in Trifles about her friend Adut.

 

There was always fear in people’s eyes, on the street, in the presence of Little, unless someone saw Chris walking along side Little. That uneasiness with Little’s existential prominence made Chris uneasy and questioning of his own existence. What did I do to deserve my privilege? With all his heart, Chris prayed for a situation in which he’d be on the defense against his existential essence and instrumentality to the society. That was a North American natural impossibility. In high school, that never happened. He prayed for a day on which he’d have the opportunity to painfully say ‘you don’t know what it’s like to be like me.’

           (Excerpted from The Pipers and the First Phase, p.103)

 

Unless the little white boy's family is blinded by Conradian lenses and sees no point in trying to understand the African Person, they’d know that in any given society, there are good and bad people.

However, in the mainstream Canadian society and media, good deeds in the African  Person aren’t always interesting. Bad deeds are always good news. How can this little white boy know that there are good deeds from people like me when the media sees no interest in good deeds we do?

I feel sorry for the little boy!

 

Follow me in twitter: @kuirthiy

Smart Canada

Smart Canada!

When I arrived in Canada in 2002, I had a different, beautiful and naïve impression that would put a break on trusting what others say until given empirical realities are satisfied. At first, the experience was nauseating; however, as I developed and grew as a writer, the experience actually changed me in a positive light. We are all humans, that is!

Everything I did thereafter and still do now goes under stern analysis. That paid off. Studying philosophy at McGill helped in grounding the desire to churn face-value culture.

However, some of things I learnt in Africa were right! A certain aid worker in Kakuma Refugee Camp told us that ‘you’re going to one of the best places to live in in the world.” He was right. Canada is consistently ranked among the top five countries to live in. In that case, the aid worker was right.

However, my impression of Canada before arriving was that of a place where everyone is well informed about the world. Little did I know that people content with their living conditions need less in terms of knowing what is happening outside their borders. People were and are still so content with their lives that what happens outside Canadian borders was a waste of time to know.

When asked where I come from and I said ‘Sudan,’ a good number of my classmates placed Sudan next to Japan or Brazil. It was an experience too big to ignore. However, as time went by, I got used to the situation. I realized I had every reason to know about Canada, the US, Europe and the Far East…they didn’t have reasons to know them.

I knew more about the world than my university colleagues so I stopped assuming that they are university students and that they’re informed. So I was schooled in a little of Northern American normative assumptions. However, my surprises wouldn’t end there!

As 2003 arrived with the American invasion of Iraq and the presidency of the Bush junior became problematic, I realized my Canadian friends and colleagues were claiming smartness they assumed American didn’t have.

Americans were reflected as stupid, uninformed and immoral. As a South Sudanese, I had to naturally support the invasion of Iraq because of the history of Sadam’s involvement in South Sudanese civil war. At first, I was regarded with horrified eyebrows until I explained to them why I supported the war.

But that wasn’t what surprised me the most. What surprised me the most was the fact that people who thought Toronto was the capital of Canada called bush a moron. To make the matter worse, the same persons were born and raised in Northern Ontario. But here they were claiming some knowledge of the world that warrants them to make value judgement about world affairs. That, I failed to understand!

But still, I didn’t know the appropriate value judgement to place on many Canadians, who believed Americans are dumb and uninformed. However, as I continued to live in Canada, I started to understand the cultural workings of many Canadians. I saw a rhetorical difference between Canada and the US; however, I didn’t so much see the functional and practical differences. Many Canadians are as uninformed and as complacent as Americans.

The attitude towards the world and people different from us was just but the same. However, Canadian still professed moral superiority over Americans. When it comes to justifying that moral superiority, I find the case just but a question of patriotic stance rather than substantive upholding of a truth.

Multiculturalism, a celebrated idea in Canada, was just but a protective mechanism that is doing immigrants a great disservice. It helps the ‘mainstream’ stay away from immigrants and that prevents immigrants from benefiting from the juicy part of what Canada is.

The saddest part of living in Canada is that the feeling of being Canadian wanes with time. The more one lives in Canada, the more one feels alienated and less welcome. This I blame on understanding the ins and outs of any cultural contexts! The more you know the bad and the ugly stand out and the more one gets repulsed.

And people like me, who see everything with critical lenses, can’t be cheated into believe rosiness of things when they are not! However powerless one remains, one’s conscience and view of things is not deluded. It’s clear and that is about what one should always want!

I see you in and out! Thanks you Canada!