"Ring!" sounds the school bell. The dank and dark hallways fill quickly with the raucous cacophony of unruly White students pushing, shoving and streaming pass walls of peeling paint and lockers aging with rust. Suddenly, fists fly as two blonde boys scuffle wildly and the narrow passage is fill with the howls of a rapacious crowd hungry for bloodlust. A bruised eye and a bleeding gash ensue before two Black teachers pull the pale combatants apart. It was the passing of another day at Mambezi High School located in the rough White ghetto of Mambezi, a neglected blemish lost amongst the daunting urban sprawl known as New Lome.
Amidst the chaos following the bell, one student had remained behind in his sixth period Igbo literature class. Kwesi Obaze, whose blonde hair and pale skin bore the exotic features of the oppressed race from the Dark Continent, Europe. Kwesi, despite his Whiteness, was very bright and his attentive blue eyes fastened tightly unto his ebony skinned teacher Mr. Obinna, whose lucid voice saturated their cramped walls as he sought to pass the lessons of the great African classics to his favorite student.
"So it was under the shelter of the great Acacia tree, when Asanwe realized that he needed to first conquer the journey of his mind, before he conquered it by foot", Mr. Obinna explains to Kwesi as they reviewed the classic masterpiece, “The Long Journey”, by the great Igbo poet Ekua Achebe. In this classic, the struggle of the protagonist Asanwe was upheld as the triumph of the pioneering spirit of man over all self-imposed challenges and limitations. It was believed that this was the spirit that was core to the greatness of African civilization, whose values Mr. Obinna longed passionately to inspire in the hearts of his students, cursed to be descended from the lethargic races of Europe. His golden haired disciple sat in his seat absorbed by the eloquent clarity of the words, clearly affected by the wisdom passed through the ages.
"Thanks Mr. Obinna, I appreciate your help, I'm planning to get started on this book report tonight." Kwesi said as he swung his backpack around his broad, sinewy shoulders.
"Anytime Kwesi. You know you're my favorite student. I wish there were more like you in my class", complemented Mr. Obinna, as his square face broke into a cognizant smile. Kwesi beamed slightly with a gentle nod of the chin as he pivoted his tall frame and began his routine half hour walk back home.
This was a walk that Kwesi never liked, but it gave him time to ponder about things. These things could range from solving a mathematical algorithm to the rise and fall of empires. These thoughts made him different from most of the other kids in his neighborhood. Kwesi was a White kid who liked school. This was a novelty, and many of his classmates had accused him of trying to "act Black". He had always felt alienated, and did not understand why speaking standard Igbo and engaging in the pursuit of knowledge was something that he should be ashamed of, least denigrated for. By accusing his love of education with “acting Black”, were his classmates insinuating that ignorance and stupidity were the hallmarks of “acting White”?
These thoughts and many others filled his mind as he walked home along trash strewn streets with cracked pavements lined by hideous wire fences. Occasionally, a beat up car blasting raucous heavy metal music would slowly drive by, then speed off. There were several times that Kwesi witnessed, where these cars would almost hit a girl playing jump rope. But it did not matter to men like those, these were tortured abusive thugs with a callous disregard for the world around them. Their code to life was a live hard, die tomorrow attitude. They had nothing to live for but the moment, they were ready to go down at any time and they did not care who they took with them.
"Woof! Woof!" a ferocious looking pitbull barked with vicious intensity while lounging upon the thin wire fence that separated Kwesi from certain injury. Kwesi, who was deep in thought and did not expect the dog, was taken aback and stumbled back a few steps nearly tripping over his own leg. Meanwhile, he heard laughter and saw two young skinheads sitting on a porch behind the dog, drunk on liquor and clearly amused by his surprised and clumsy reaction to the potentially violent assault perpetrated by their "pet".
"Whaz wrong pinky? Aint never seen a puppy before? Ha ha ha", yelled one of the thugs as Kwesi put his head down and walked onwards.
He knew better than to talk back or pick a fight with the skinheads. They were dangerous men with nothing to lose. Plus, they were liquored up and waiting for a fight. Kwesi would only be giving them an excuse to vent their anger. He had ambitions and plans for a better life, and was determined not to get into any trouble that would hinder him from his goals. So he pulled his hood over his head, ignored their taunts and walked away as if nothing happened.
"That's right pinky, keep walking, dumb tight assed pinky!"
Pinky. It was a word that Kwesi had always hated. A derogatory term used by former African slaveholders to dehumanize and subjugate their European slaves. The fact that it was now in wide usage as street slang by some of the more ignorant segments of the White population as a term of camaraderie, was a travesty in Kwesi's eyes.
His mother had taught him better. Though she never graduated high school after she became pregnant with him at a young age, she was raised well by her parents and conducted herself with self-respect. Kwesi remembered one incident from his childhood, when he walked home with a friend, and bid him good bye with the words, "Later pinky!" His mother calmly commanded him to close the door and come into the kitchen. She was washing dishes but once he walked in, she had stopped washing and stared at him so hard, he felt like she was burning a hole through him with her steel blue eyes. He approached her with trepidation, his fear could have almost sliced into the silent tension. She washed off her hands calmly and wiped it with a towel, then slapped him right across the face so hard that he could have sworn he saw stars. That was the first time and the last time that his mother slapped him. After he recovered from the shock of the strike, he looked up and her face was trembling. His mother’s blonde locks were shimmering with the rays of the sun, and her blue eyes were welling with tears.
"Kwesi. I've told you this before, and I will only tell you once more. I will not tolerate you ever using that word again. Do you understand me?"
Kwesi nodded his head, still reeling from the blow. He could feel the blood rushing to his left cheek.
"That word was used as a tool of oppression to rob our ancestors of their humanity. It is an ugly evil word. We are not "pinkies". We are Europeans. We are human beings. How can Blacks respect us, when we can't even respect ourselves?"
Kwesi dipped his head and stood there feeling shock and also guilt for doing something that had made his mother so unhappy. She stood there and saw this in his eyes, and her own eyes softened. She caressed his cheek, where she had just struck a moment before, and whispered gently, "It's ok son. I’m sorry for hitting you. Just don't do it again. Go on. We will have dinner soon."
After that, there was not a word that was spoken again about that incident. And never again, would Kwesi address another White person as “pinky”.
Kwesi walked up the familiar cracked walkway to the small two bedroom house that they called home. He picked up mail from the mailbox outside and opened the door. He sifted through the mail, a couple of bills from the utility department again marked red. They must be late again, sighed Kwesi. Their mother was not yet home and would not be for another few hours. Her job as a hotel maid started in the early morning hours before any sunlight would break. However, today, she was also working a few hours over suppertime as a part time housekeeper to a wealthy Black family uptown. She would not be home until well past eight, so Kwesi had to prepare dinner tonight.
As Kwesi walked into the living room and dropped off the mail at a corner table, he could see his sister Ifena in the bedroom. She was at her vanity and busy doing her hair while listening to some music. Ifena was a year younger than him and usually got home from school earlier than he did. She was born a natural redhead and had naturally pale skin. However, she had started to use a tanning cream called EZ Black which had yet to produce any results. The bottle sat on her vanity and the catchphrase went “Tired of being White and Ugly? Be Black and Beautiful. It is EZ!”. She was busy curling her hair with a hot iron, teasing and manipulating it with a specialty iron made to curl straight European hair into a spiral form that more closely resembled African hair, or “good hair” as White folks called it.
“Ouch!” Ifena winced as she burned herself again.
“Hey sis. Looks like you had a busy month. I saw our phone bill, it just came in.” Kwesi remarked, shaking his head in disapproval.
“God, I don’t even want to know how much that is. I’m fixin’ my hair, don’t give me more things to worry ‘bout. Shoot.” She snapped as she focused her concentration on teasing a stubborn strand of her red hair around one of the small hot iron rods.
Kwesi rolls his eyes and goes to the couch to turn on some TV and relax. He flips to the news and lingers a bit. The newscaster reviews the latest economic data coming from the national Maralan economy, things had not been looking good lately and unemployment was up. The news then switches to the Middle East and the proxy war being fought between the Muslim Turks, who are supported by Marala, and the Christian Greeks who are supported by Ethiopia, one of Africa’s great powers.
Kwesi decides to continue flipping the channels, they are all filled with Black faces. He finally settles on the Maralan history channel, interested in a feature on the origins of Thanksgiving, when the pioneering Igbo forefathers survived their first grueling winter with the aid of friendly native Maralans who were later nearly made extinct by successive African colonizers. But the version that he sees on TV does not cover that dark chapter, instead it celebrates the heroics of the Igbo settlers as they faced climates that they could not have imagined back in their native tropical Africa. The program describes how the pioneers were amazed and terrified with their first encounter with snow, water crystals that seemed to turn the world around them into a frozen wasteland. This was a phenomenon that they never experienced. As reiterated on the program, they not only met such challenges but thrived. It was a story about undaunted courage, thirsting ambition and destiny fulfilled.
After an hour of TV, Kwesi begins to prepare dinner. Ifena joins him in the kitchen. Her red afro contrasted sharply with her ivory complexion. She had tried to darken herself many times before, but she was so pale that she would only blister in the sun and turned red. This did not stop her from trying again. Blistered skin was common to White girls, who were always wishing to be darker to attract the attention of their male counterparts. These attempts at beautifying themselves with only peeling reddish skin to show for it, was almost comical to many Black folks. It amused them that Whites would try so hard to acquire their complexion, almost to the point of physical mutilation. Yet these Whites could never come close to their standard of beauty, which was a complexion that resembled rich cocoa. In fact, the origin of the word pinky was often traced to the tendency of the European skin to burn into a red hue underneath the hot plantation sun. The Blacks called them pinky on account of their pinkish complexion.
Smooth. Dark. Pure. White skin simply could not compete, and Blacks were smug in their superiority complex. However, it was no secret that a lot of money could be made pandering to this White obsession with Blackness. Many products were created to appeal to this market, from tanning lotions, to hair curlers to take home lip injection kits. Most of these products were peddled by the enterprising Kikuyus, who were a sharp business minded minority originating from the Swahili Empire of East Africa. These keen witted entrepreneurs often opened businesses in the roughest White neighborhoods, places where most Blacks would not dare step foot in. They made fortunes selling products such as these, and other more essential daily goods to their White customers. Of course, they also had to deal with the crime and safety issues that were widespread in the ghettoes. Robbery was common, but the profit margins were so high and the competition so low, that it was worth the risk for many an enterprising Kikuyu.
“So how was school today Kwesi?” Asks Ifena as she enters the kitchen. She begins taking out the cassava root to pound into fufu, their daily staple.
“It was ok. I’m doing this book report in Mr. Obinna’s class. I like him. He’s nice. Most of the other Black teachers talk down to me. But he’s different. He really puts in a lot of effort to help me in the class and he says I’m his favorite student.” Says Kwesi as he marinates some chicken with peanut sauce.
“Well, that’s cuz you ain’t like most of the other White boys. You’re smart Kwesi, and he sees it.” Ifena says affirmatively as she bobs her red afro as she nods. Many of the curls are loose and are already straightening out. It was not easy for White women to look beautiful, something that seemed to come so naturally for Black women. It took hours for White women to curl their hair enough to get that spiral texture, and it seemed like the hair would just as fast straighten itself out once they got out the door. Straight European hair was a curse, and taming it was an even greater curse.
However, going through all this trouble was worth it. Who wanted to have straight hair hanging on your head like a mop. What man wanted that? Blacks had always said that White hair was bestial like, similar to the hair that you would find on an animal. In addition, Whites also had a pale face combined with loose hair, features that reminded Blacks of chimpanzees. This comparison was often used by Black “race scientists” to dehumanize Europeans and to nearly equate them as a sub species of the ape family, in contrast to the African race, which represented the pinnacle of human evolution.
After some time, dinner was prepared and the table was set. Although it had always been just the three of them, Ifena, Kwesi and their mother, they had always eaten dinner together when they could help it. Kwesi’s father was gone a long time ago. He and his mother had a brief relationship during her high school years, which resulted in her getting pregnant and dropping out of school. This was very disappointing to her parents, who were conservative Chukwu churchgoing folk. Later on, her mother said she heard that he ended up in jail for stealing cars, and had not heard of him since. Kwesi never missed him because he never knew him. A situation most of the White kids in the neighborhood could relate to. The majority of White households were headed by a single mother. But he had always wondered how it would have been like if his father was present. Would their family feel more complete and secure? Maybe they wouldn’t have to worry about money so much, maybe they would have enough to pay the rent and bills, and have some more left over. That would be so nice, to not have to worry about money. This desire burned so strongly in Kwesi, and it made him determined to excel in his studies so that he could get a proper education and help his family rise out of the desperate straits they often felt confined in. Money was one of those necessary evils Kwesi thought, you hate dealing with it, but you could not live without it. Kwesi knew he had to get out of the ghetto, and the only legitimate way to do it was to get an education.
They could hear a key swiveling in the door lock, and a moment later, their mother Somayina walks through the door.
Somayina was a tall woman with a tall European nose. She had long blonde hair that she never bothered to curl. Kwesi had always wondered if his mother would’ve been able to get a good man if she would only have concentrated on putting more of an effort in keeping up her looks. However, that never seemed a priority of hers, and she wore her hair down in all its European glory, standing in the face of what society considered beautiful. Her face was still attractive, yet it was also lined with signs of her age etched through years of endless worry and back breaking work.
“Ugh”, their mom sighed as she sat down on the kitchen table. Her eyes were weary and her frame seemed to sag with fatigue.
“It’s been a long day for your momma, kids”. She said. “Today, they let go of ten more people at the hotel, most were White. I’m scared that I may be next”.
“But they won’t mom. You’ve been there so long…. And you work so hard”. Ifena said, as she tried to reassure her, though the doubt in her voice was quite obvious. Kwesi started to fix her a dish as they got ready to eat.
“Well, you never know. I mean, my supervisor, Funanya, is a good and fair Black woman. But she’s not the one making decisions. In the end, Mr. Munene does. It’s his hotel and he can do whatever he wants. If the numbers don’t look good, I might just as well be next. I mean, to him, I’m just another old spook running around, nothing more.” Lamented their mother as she used a racist term used to denigrate Whites to further illustrate her point.
“Well, if it happens, we’ll just have to make do,” replied Kwesi in his usual logical and rational manner. “Don’t worry mom, things will start looking up. But we still got to eat tonight, cuz I’m sure we’re all starving”.
“Amen, son.” Smiles their mother as she brushes his cheek. “Let’s first say grace and thank our supreme god, Chi, for all that we have today.” They begin to dim their heads down to pray. “Thank you for your generosity and this abundance and allowing the company of our loved ones. We are forever in your debt. Amen.”
With grace spoken, the family passed the plates and the dinner table was filled with the sounds of warm laughter and spirited opinions. It was another evening at the Obaze house, a home filled with love and light.
