The life of An African American PCV

In honor of Black History Month, African American Peace Corps Volunteers in Tanzania were asked to write about their experience for the PSDN (Peer Support Diversity Network) Newsletter.  We were told that our audience would be majority white (other PCVs) so we are not allowed to be offensive.  I am posting what I submitted below.

However, since this is my blog I can be completely honest… Being an African American Peace Corps Volunteer is like being a double minority.  You obviously aren’t Tanzanian, but you don’t always fit in with your majority white fellow volunteers.  When I am in my village I am clearly labeled as a foreigner due to my ignorance to their culture and difficulties with Kiswahili.  I think my skin color is irrelevant to Tanzanians who see me regularly.  The time I am most aware of being Black is when I am with other volunteers.  I have been in restaurants with fellow volunteers and ex-patriots who treat the Tanzanian staff like house slaves and make comments that are so blatantly racist it makes my skin crawl.  I have also been in conversations with other volunteers where frustrations in teaching turn to overgeneralizations about the intellectual inferiority of Black people and why Tanzanian students just “can’t learn.”  Rather than simply rant about my own thoughts on this, I would love to hear the comments of some of my loyal readers.  In the age of Obama, American racism continues to astound me…

Submission for PSDN Article:

     I have always had a strong sense of racial pride and my African American identity has shaped my perception of the world.  When I found out that I would be a Peace Corps volunteer in Tanzania I was overjoyed by this sense of returning to the motherland and helping my fellow black brothers and sisters.  Unfortunately, my experience thus far has led to an unexpected racial identity crisis.  In the United States, my black identity was taken for granted. While I would occasionally be asked if I was biracial, as a result of our infamous “one drop rule” my race was never questioned.  In college I spent a semester in Cape Town, South Africa and was quickly labeled as “colored.”  Apartheid had created this racial category for everyone who was light in complexion (although clearly not white) or of mixed ancestry.  While I was struck by the blatant racism in South Africa and the division between Blacks and Colored’s, I could identify with being a racial minority in a country that was oppressed by whites.  Although I am “Black” in America and “Colored” in South Africa, I was not prepared to be categorized as white when I arrived in Tanzania.  

            During training I heard the lovely echo of “Mzungu” as I walked with other PCVs, and sincerely believed that they were not talking about me.  Clearly they were referring to my white peers.  Then, on my first day of internship teaching my bubble of self-delusion burst.  One student said to me, “Madame, we would love to hear more about the experiences of white people like you in America.”  This comment confused me. I immediately responded by telling the student that I do not know about the experience of white people in America because I am Black like all of them.  Then I tried to explain how Black people in the United States are all different shades and that its important to look at facial features, hair texture, etc. and not just skin color.  I was met with blank stares as I realized I was speaking a foreign language both literally and figuratively. So I gave up but decided to do a preemptive strike when I reached my site.  I teach form one English and I was able incorporate race into lessons on family and physical appearance.  As I showed my students pictures of my family and our spectrum of skin color, they were able to appreciate Black diversity. One of my students said, “Wow, Black people are so beautiful.” In a society still healing from the wounds of colonialism and Western conceptions of beauty, this comment made me so happy! My students have also learned that I am, “Light, not white.”

            At first being called white both annoyed and offended me.  But then I learned how arbitrary race is.  What matters is how you see yourself and if you are confident in your own identity, it doesn’t matter how many times you hear the word “mzungu.”