Africa is not a country. Reprise.
I kinda learned that in grade school, but it remained a blur.
It was a dazzlingly brilliant day, so much that it almost hurt. And there she was. Her traditional robe gently unfurling in the breeze. She had to be African. Not African-American*, African-African*. I was right. She is Ashanti. She looked lost. It took almost two years for Harvard and Cambridge to help her find her way, but they did. I don’t know how she is doing now.
I don’t know the full history of the Hutu’s and the Tutsi’s, but I do wonder where the machetes came from. Would things have been different if we African-European-Americans* had The Prime Directive or better if we had never gone back at all?
I know a man from Tanzania and young man from Eritrea. They have pretty good ideas where they are going. If you work at Harvard long enough the whole world drops in. Slowly the fog is lifting.
This is Africa Week at Harvard. Tonight a Film: The Invisible Children; The lives of children soldiers in Uganda. Tonight Thurs. April 5, 2007 @ 7:00 PM Emerson 305.
Last night, Professor Jacob Olupona from [among many places] Harvard Divinity School
addressed the question, “Is Jesus a White Man’s God?” I speak not even one African language. Fortunately he spoke English. Unfortunately, I still had a hard time**. Hopefully the text will be posted to the net. But I heard what I most needed to. “It is often assumed that Christianity in Africa is nothing more than a tool of colonial oppression. This racist assumption is false.” After duly noting the disclosure implicit in his job title, I still feel compelled to take this seriously. It is the assumption I held. It is tenaciously held by some on the ideological left, who seem to believe that denouncing others magically makes them free of racsim. I almost wish it were that simple. For me, unlearning the racism of youth*** has been and may well be a lifelong task. I am a work in progress.
Full schedule of events in the Science Center
*According to the Human Genome Project, we are all African-somethings.
** In graduate school I learned that multilingual people are also better at understanding non-native English speakers than I am. My Greek colleague could understand by Chinese colleague’s English and ‘translate’.
***My mother’s commentary on “Gone with the Wind” and a fortiori “Amos ‘n Andy” was tragedy and farce.
