Impressions -- an essay for my program

During one of our orientation lectures, Kwame Shabaz told us pay attention to the things that provoke strong reactions – whether they be reactions of passion, curiosity, disgust or bewilderment. While the following represent only a few of such moments, they were all memorable enough that I jotted down in one of my many disorganized notebooks and journal margins. I labeled them as “Thoughts,” and set them apart from other notes with brackets and stars and italics. At times I found myself more interested in these notes than in the lectures that were producing the material for them; at other times these observations were made possible precisely because a lecture did not happen. In any case, these represent only the extremes and thus do not really represent anything, except for the peaks and ploughs of my emotional experience of Ghana. Most especially, these quotations have been taken out of context and thus, in many cases do not completely represent the speaker.



“A student of mine once observed that there is a noticeable difference between African students in the department and African American students: the former are self-assured and confident, while the latter are often struggling against a sense of inferiority”
Prof. Adams
This quotation was shocking in several ways. First of all, I am still learning so much about race in America – I’ve only ever had one real conversation about being black in the States. So it’s been easy to imagine that we’re all the same and that our experiences are only different if we chose to make them so. But I know that isn’t yet true (will it ever be?) and even my own experiences as a bi-racial Latina have shown me that the racial hierarchy still exists in phantoms and memories and projections and for some, in realities. I think the only way to move away from racism is for one person to take a chance and be truthful and drop the mask in a duet of truth and honesty and nakenedess with someone equally scared and equally brave. And as I haven’t done this very much, I still have a pool of quiet racism to face, to see myself reflected in, and to begin to drain.
Secondly, it’s a surprising twist that this professor was comparing Africans and African Americas – in a way that elevated Africans. Most of the time there’s an implicit assumption in America that it’s better to be an ‘anybody’ in the States than a king in an African country. We even read a Zora Neale Hurston essay in which she writes (controversially) about slavery being the price her ancestors had to pay for civilization. When my Ghanaian classmate challenged that line, our professor could only agree that the “Africa as uncivilized” ideas was, in fact, exactly what Ms. Hurston was implying. Although I do not intentionally place Americans over Africans, at some level I must have unconsciously absorbed that message. I know, because of the surprise I felt when my professor described African Americans as lacking something that Africans in America have.



“I will give you a Bible if you come up here to throw away a condom.”
- A Preacher, sermonizing before one of my lectures.
Listening to the dark, dark skinned man in his deep blue shirt, a blue which brought out the heavy purples and indigoes of the reflections of light on the sweat layer swathing his face, I felt both angry and indifferent. I knew enough to put him in context, to separate his words from his proclaimed role and religious association. I saw my deeply Christian friend shake her head and pointedly ignore him, and I listened as conversations continued in the rows ahead and behind me. But even then, just the fact of his presence, and the devout and keen listeners he managed to scrounge up from amongst the class, were enough to challenge my ideas about tolerance. I suppose I may have a West-centric view on AIDS in Africa and the role of condoms and of religion – but neither abstinence nor condoms has proven to be very effective on the population level, and on the individual level either can work but need not be traded against each other.



“There’s a modern scramble for Africa going on between China, India and the US.”
- Prof. Jacob Songsore
The original scramble for Africa happened when European powers raced to lay claims to various African territories, in the hopes of gaining political influence and access to valuable resources. The name is deceptive – “scramble for” implies that all of the power of motion, of action, lay with these European nations, when in fact the historical melee was a product of interactions between various European and African actors and segmented classes and interests. This time around, the same assumed ideologies are at play – Africa as the passive static continent waiting to be divvied up by the big boys around the corner. And the assumption is wrong again, for much the same reasons.
However, it is interesting to see which countries have a lot of influence here and how that is manifested…we keep spotting TATA trucks (an Indian super-company,) and a lot of the projects that are referred to in my lectures are Chinese-sponsored. The US presence is harder for me to point out explicitly, because when I experience it, it almost feels natural. So many international players have so many vested interests in Africa: for military bases, for access to oil resources, for aid delivery channels and good PR.



“In Ghana, people don’t want to hurt foreigners, but they’ll want to marry you to get a passport out of Ghana.”
-Prof. Jacob Songsore
Perhaps even more than the quotation itself, I was struck by the delivery. This professor, who is brilliant and intimidatingly academic most of the time, seemed to be sharing an inside joke with all of the Ghanaians in the class (so, everyone but me and one other girl.) Everyone kind of chuckled in a knowing sort of way, but actually, from an outsider’s perspective, that’s a really loaded comment to make, especially when it’s tossed out with the same disregard exhibited by the pooled taxi driver who casually chucked his used water sachet bag out the window after taking one last drag on his chewed up corner.
‘People don’t want to hurt foreigners’ – in Ghana, which implies that in other African countries, the same is not true. In fact, my professor went on to talk about the dangers belaying a white person in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Why is this? Because Ghana’s economy is better or its government more stable? Is there inter-African ethnic stereotyping, when one defines a Ghanaian by what a Nigerian is not?
And then the next part – ‘but they’ll want to marry you to get a passport out of Ghana,’ which no one really had to tell me, or any girl on this trip, because we’ve all been solicited by at least one out of every five to ten male acquaintances. I once took down a taxi driver’s phone number because he wanted me to call him when I go back to the US so that I can bring him with me. As I was writing it down, I knew that my smile and inked numbers were a lie; the friends I was with watching knew they were a lie; and I don’t understand how he could have actually thought it was anything more than a lie either.
Whenever I mention that I’m from California, people talk about wanting to come, and as much as I love my state and my home, I can’t help thinking that some of the people who talk about coming would be disappointed with the reality of it. Then again when my Literature professor asked her friend “Why do so many Ghanaians want to come to Germany as cleaners or caretakers? They could definitely get better jobs in Ghana,” he responded “But even with a better job, sometimes they can make more money being a cleaner in Germany than a professor in Ghana.” Zing.
[Incidentally, my Economics professor makes $1700 a month, and told us not to begrudge him the days his misses lecture to complete a project that pays $2,000.]
Last word though: The first Ghanaian-raised educated in American student I met was talking about going back to start school in September. When he said he had 25 days left, I said “Oh, you’re already counting down?”
“No. I don’t want to leave at all.”


“You don’t know anything. If I ask you about the US, you can rattle of an answer. You’re looking at the US, Coca Cola, iPods, you’re looking outside and don’t know anything about your country. How will this lead to development?”
- Prof. Jacob Songsore
This professor is really passionate about being rooted in Ghana – Ghanaian culture and history and geography. But in response to his question – whose fault is it if the students in front of him know more about American pop culture than the ancient history of Ghana? Is it the fault of their teachers before them? Of schools? Of government? Of the US-spawned global consumer culture? Of globalization itself? It would take so much effort for these students to not know about Coca Cola and iPods, and would it be better if they didn’t? I don’t think so.
Interesting what he chose to represent America though. If I was a student in Ghana, would I prefer to pursue an education and career and life abroad? Or stay here? Today I just visited the office of a high-ranking doctor at the Center for Community Health, which in the US would warrant shiny windows, a swirly chair, a secretary, full AC, filing cabinets, and a private office. Instead, this beautiful, kind accomplished man was sitting in a shared office surrounded by light green paint, old shutters, and piles and piles of documents, and furnished with two basic desks and chairs, with the AC remote carefully wrapped in a protective plastic bag on the table. It’s a tough, unglamorous, potentially unthanked decision. I don’t know.


“It’s OK, baby girl, it’s over.”
-Grace, on slavery at the Cape Coast Castle
How can it be OK, how can it be over? When you and I are both still living with the consequences of this place, of these people, of these ghosts and bones and demons? When the descendants of the people who passed through here are some of the people I read about getting shot in my neighboring Oakland, when they are some of the people I address a public policy memo to, highlighting the racial discrimination inherent in US coke and crack sentencing laws, when they are some of the people who live in the Afro-dorm across the way from which I hear Gospel singing and in which I feel uncomfortable and distinctly like an excluded and excluding outsider. When you are the descendent of the people who avoided passing through here, and perhaps also of some of the people who brought people here in exchange for money or arms. How? How can you be so much stronger than me, so that despite the weight of the world leering in at Africa, you are the one holding me up as I full body sob uncontrollably? How can it be over for you, when it’s just beginning for me?


“They didn’t open the doors until everyone was dead.”
-Cape Coast Castle tour guide
I read this book called the Wave once, about how easy it would be for Nazism to take hold in a small town high school classroom. It’s hard for me to know or imagine how near or how far away we are from repeating this.
I’ve never been imbued with death like this… the memory still makes my body and mind fall into silence.


“Tell people back in the US.”
-Joshua, Volta porter
We were talking about my recent trip to Cape Coast, and no, I didn’t see the Castle this time, but I have been through it a few weeks before and how could that have happened. ‘How?’ he asks me, incredulous that I should ask the question. He tells me that Africans are strong, strong people, and points out that so many great American athletes are of African descent. He himself is a big man, and strong, and is also soft and warm. He’s the Joseph to my Mary turned Miriam. And he knows I understand, or at least, he thinks I do. But how am I going to communicate all of this, without self-righteously blaming them, or self-consciously saying nothing?



“Fair-skinned is a term that implies that light skin is a positive attribute. Lighter is better”
-Adams
Even so, light and dark have their own powerful connotations. I wonder how black got re-branded as beautiful and to whom the message was made clear?


“There’s a joke, if you want to hide something from an African man, write it down”
-Econ prof
I couldn’t tell if the class laughter was at the joke or at the man for being so racist as to tell it. He is Ghanaian, since that seems like it would matter. Why would you continue to propagate that kind of idea, even jokingly? And in a classroom? Is it funny? Perhaps he retold it bitterly, as a sentiment which should motivate his students to prove it wrong.



“In Nigeria, I’m Ibo. In England, I’m Nigerian. In the US, I’m African.”
-Rebecca, a joke she once heard


“It is finished.”

– multiple photocopiers on multiple occasions in relation to a multitude of readings and textbooks that I have yet to find. Also, several vendors, on the absence of laughing cow cheese.