White Like Me
(Originally published as an essay in Executive magazine, 1992)

By David Blumenkrantz

So Shaka Zulu Assegai has finally won at least one battle. I'm referring not to the legendary warrior, but to a certain bad dude from Houston who has, from time to time, been in and out of this country's newspapers, courthouses, and jails. A man who, in a fit of miscalculated idealism, actually thought that as a descendant of former slaves, he and his "Africans Coming Home Foundation" would be welcomed with open arms in the motherland...

I read in the paper the other day that a court has directed that he be granted Kenyan citizenship. Not quite the 40 acres of free land he has been agitating for (as per the infamous unfulfilled promise to all former slaves), but a worthy reward nevertheless for a hard fought, often nasty struggle. Some time ago - though long after reality had put to rest any hopes he may have had of a kinder, gentler solution to his immigration woes - he told my wife and I about the eye-opening reception he first received as a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger. This was back in the late 1970s. Shaka Zulu Assegai, as he was already calling himself by then, having shed his slave name and mentality for a Garveyesque alternative, recalls being treated with less respect than his white Peace Corps colleagues. Ouch. Later in Zaire, he was called mzungu. Ouch, ouch.

If my wife weren't African, it's doubtful I should have been made privy to Shaka’s unique brand of militancy. He confessed to having cultivated a healthy hatred of whites while growing up in America. Although he was more inclined towards the militancy of Malcolm X, he explained that it was the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. that had pushed him over the edge.

The moral of that story is still unclear to me, especially when I consider Shaka's troubling inclination towards doing things the hard way. Yet, from time to time, when I myself come face to face with the ugly snout of racial prejudice here in Kenya, I can at least find some convoluted satisfaction (if not comfort) in thinking: If a black man from the African Diaspora can't break through out here largely because the tribal monster turns him away, how did I ever imagine I'd be fully accepted?

Photo by Andrew Njoroge

Vague, imperfect notions of Universal Brotherhood attended my own arrival in Africa in 1987. Being essentially an "average guy", I quickly found myself identifying with people whose lives seemed to be a hard but noble struggle. Far from a lofty missionary zeal, however, my romanticism was born out of a much more pedestrian faith in the goodness of people in general, colored by a natural empathy for the underdog.

A simple matter of share and share alike, however, gradually became a pipe dream that would require a plumber of transcendental dexterity to unclog. I'm not talking here about personal or working relationships, but about what could be described as the ultimate position of the individual in Society-At-Large...

Five years on and I still can't seem to shake that beast. My intention here is not to complain, but to wonder aloud: What the devil is wrong with society, when a man can't be taken at face value? How wearying it is to have kindness constantly mistaken for weakness. Or to have to prove yourself everyday, to everyone you meet: "Not me, I’m not to be associated with your colonial hangover". Let's face it: walking the streets of Nairobi, it's easier to dress down than be dressed down.

Peasant farming in Rironi Photographer unknown

It may seem petty to talk about minor irritations such as having mediocre batiks and bogus 'elephant hair' bracelets shoved in your face at every turn, but it's those same little things that accumulate and remind you that you're not at home. There's something increasingly unsettling in daily having to brush off calls of "Yes, taxi!" on most streets in the city center. All whites come from relatively privileged backgrounds, so must you. All whites exist exclusively from the wananchi, so must you. QED.

This is hard when it flies in the face of your own reality. At what point do you swallow your pride and stop thinking about the two-plus years of riding matatus into town from Rironi and Uthiru, where you lived, by choice, a life far removed from that of your fellow expatriates in their cultural enclaves?

At least in this respect, you're more likely to get a fair hearing from the bank teller dwelling in Buru Burn than from the European whose willingness to "integrate" depends largely on the "competence level" of the African in question. Try to commiserate with those barely subsisting in the slums, and it's likely that you'll be taken as either a Father or a Fool. Sorting out true friends from the opportunists is a sobering task. Leave alone the people you meet who affect British and American accents and style.

Shaka Zulu Photo by David Blumenkrantz

When all is said and done, it would be nice and compact if it could all be explained away by skin color. That would at least allow a measure of inevitability into the equation. But then I remember Shaka Zulu, and the weakness in humankind that sequesters people into tunnel vision. For after all of his strident attempts at integrating himself and his fellow African-Americans into African society, Shaka is still prepared, as we all are, to play his own trump cards. "All I have to say," he once told me with a laugh, "is if you're not ready to take us all back, we'll see you at the Olympics!”

Interview with Shaka Zulu Assegai