One morning this week, I woke up with the sun at 5:30am and couldn't get back to sleep. I turned on my phone to see what was happening in the world, and ended up reading articles about Mizzou and Yale for two hours. At one point, watching a video of the student protests at Mizzou, I just started crying into my pillow.
When I finally got out of bed, I went outside with my cup of coffee to finish reading To Kill a Mockingbird. There's a post-it inside with "Sarah MacLean, 19 pages/night" written in my handwriting from middle school. Apparently I had planned to read it for school, but just never stuck with it. Living as an "azungu" in Malawi for a year, this book means so much more. Maybe it was fate that stopped me from reading it at a younger age so that I could wait to read it in this transformative part of my life.
In the liberal bubble of Chapel Hill, I spent four years being exposed to various theories about race and "white privilege." While events around the US demonstrate that, even in 2015, the color of my skin gives me enormous privilege, this is demonstrated even more clearly in a former British colony in sub-Saharan Africa.
My roommate, Austin, wrote about whiteness in his most recently monthly email update. A lot of his thoughts have also been on my mind, lately:
"Whether in Uganda, Zambia, or Malawi, kids point at me and say "mazungu" or "azungu" (the words for white person, depending on the language), especially the rural kids. This is commonplace, and I have even seen moms at the maternity hospital point at me when I walk by and whisper the word to their children, imprinting in their developing minds that this is, in fact, what a white person looks like. I'm not exactly sure why this is an important thing to teach, but I have some theories.
First, being white means I have money. These words were said almost verbatim to me by a coworker - that when people see me and see that I'm white, they automatically think that I must have a surplus of money. My coworkers must assume this when they tell me that I should pay for the whole team to take a Saturday trip to the lake and continue to insistently request this. Whiteness equals wealth."
In the main shopping center in town, I've seen the same woman, baby on her back, asking people for money. She's approached me numerous times, and will stand outside the car even after I've closed the door. The thing is, this whiteness = wealth idea is probably true 99% of the time here. The guilt of wealth is something I've been thinking about a lot in the last three months. At some point, I hope to be able to write something coherent about my thoughts on this subject...
"Second, I am a novel creature. I have hair all over my arms and legs. The hair on my head has unusual shapes and doesn't curl nearly as much as theirs. I am taller than most men here. I look different. This difference makes me acutely aware of my race. I pretend at times that this helps me empathize with minorities' experiences of racism in the US, but this racial self-awareness is not the same - it's as a privileged race. I look different from people here, but my differences mean privilege, power, and wealth."
As an extremely pale woman with light, curly hair, I can really relate to this idea of standing out. I've had similar experiences in South America, that feeling of being watched present at all times. When my parents visited me in Chile in May 2014, I first proposed the idea of living abroad for a year after graduation. I distinctly remember telling them, though, that I was weary of going to a country where I stood out so much. I'm glad that I got over this fear of being a clear foreigner for a year, but that's not to say that I have not had experiences in Malawi that have left me feeling emotionally exhausted.
"Finally, white is more about privilege than color. My Indian housemate is an azungu. My Asian coworker is an azungu. But Malawians with albinism are grouped with people with disabilities according to a billboard with the president's profile advocating for equal treatment. Albinism is the wrong kind of white skin, and it is much more prevalent than I realized. Malawians I have seen with albinism beg for money outside my church. Many are outcasts of society. Their skin color may more closely resemble mine than Indians or Asians, but that's not what azungu or whiteness is about. Being azungu means you have access to social capital and resources."
So we come back to this idea of skin color. It's obviously not a perfect science, though, based on the examples Austin presents. What I always come back to, though, is the science of homo sapien. At the end of the day, regardless of appearance, we all have DNA that is 99.5% identical. This year in Malawi, and the years to come, will be spent trying to answer the question: why are people treated so differently?
When I finally got out of bed, I went outside with my cup of coffee to finish reading To Kill a Mockingbird. There's a post-it inside with "Sarah MacLean, 19 pages/night" written in my handwriting from middle school. Apparently I had planned to read it for school, but just never stuck with it. Living as an "azungu" in Malawi for a year, this book means so much more. Maybe it was fate that stopped me from reading it at a younger age so that I could wait to read it in this transformative part of my life.
In the liberal bubble of Chapel Hill, I spent four years being exposed to various theories about race and "white privilege." While events around the US demonstrate that, even in 2015, the color of my skin gives me enormous privilege, this is demonstrated even more clearly in a former British colony in sub-Saharan Africa.
My roommate, Austin, wrote about whiteness in his most recently monthly email update. A lot of his thoughts have also been on my mind, lately:
"Whether in Uganda, Zambia, or Malawi, kids point at me and say "mazungu" or "azungu" (the words for white person, depending on the language), especially the rural kids. This is commonplace, and I have even seen moms at the maternity hospital point at me when I walk by and whisper the word to their children, imprinting in their developing minds that this is, in fact, what a white person looks like. I'm not exactly sure why this is an important thing to teach, but I have some theories.
First, being white means I have money. These words were said almost verbatim to me by a coworker - that when people see me and see that I'm white, they automatically think that I must have a surplus of money. My coworkers must assume this when they tell me that I should pay for the whole team to take a Saturday trip to the lake and continue to insistently request this. Whiteness equals wealth."
In the main shopping center in town, I've seen the same woman, baby on her back, asking people for money. She's approached me numerous times, and will stand outside the car even after I've closed the door. The thing is, this whiteness = wealth idea is probably true 99% of the time here. The guilt of wealth is something I've been thinking about a lot in the last three months. At some point, I hope to be able to write something coherent about my thoughts on this subject...
"Second, I am a novel creature. I have hair all over my arms and legs. The hair on my head has unusual shapes and doesn't curl nearly as much as theirs. I am taller than most men here. I look different. This difference makes me acutely aware of my race. I pretend at times that this helps me empathize with minorities' experiences of racism in the US, but this racial self-awareness is not the same - it's as a privileged race. I look different from people here, but my differences mean privilege, power, and wealth."
As an extremely pale woman with light, curly hair, I can really relate to this idea of standing out. I've had similar experiences in South America, that feeling of being watched present at all times. When my parents visited me in Chile in May 2014, I first proposed the idea of living abroad for a year after graduation. I distinctly remember telling them, though, that I was weary of going to a country where I stood out so much. I'm glad that I got over this fear of being a clear foreigner for a year, but that's not to say that I have not had experiences in Malawi that have left me feeling emotionally exhausted.
"Finally, white is more about privilege than color. My Indian housemate is an azungu. My Asian coworker is an azungu. But Malawians with albinism are grouped with people with disabilities according to a billboard with the president's profile advocating for equal treatment. Albinism is the wrong kind of white skin, and it is much more prevalent than I realized. Malawians I have seen with albinism beg for money outside my church. Many are outcasts of society. Their skin color may more closely resemble mine than Indians or Asians, but that's not what azungu or whiteness is about. Being azungu means you have access to social capital and resources."
So we come back to this idea of skin color. It's obviously not a perfect science, though, based on the examples Austin presents. What I always come back to, though, is the science of homo sapien. At the end of the day, regardless of appearance, we all have DNA that is 99.5% identical. This year in Malawi, and the years to come, will be spent trying to answer the question: why are people treated so differently?