SBS 301 Cultural Diversity                Fall 2000                Personal Memory Ethnographies

Nicolle K. Walker

WHITE BOY


After forty-five minutes of the barber snip-snipping away my five-year-old hair, I raced out of the corner barbershop with a new cropped head of hair and my brother running close behind. We crossed the dirt road in Sierra Leone and I noticed a group of West African boys on the corner. As I passed by, one of the boys pointed at me and said in a mixture of English and Krio, "Look at daat pretty white pikindem" (pretty white boy). The kids had wide toothy grins that seemed to glow against their blackness. Their skin was a midnight black and it turned a shade darker as they chanted "White boy, white boy!" The palms of their hands were died bright orange from their diet of Plasas, a West African dish. As I zoomed by the group, that heavy smell of spice and burned palm oil reached out like long fingers pulling me back, slowing me down. The group of boys was a part of my own double consciousness. They were my tribal half, my ethnic half, my spice. Soon my hands would be orange and I would see through orange eyes too. As I ran past those boys, did they see their own history of colonization zoom by on my pale white skin?

I broke free from their gaze and ran towards the ocean. My brother and I reached the hot sand, kicked off our shoes, and wiggled out of our shirts. I knew that my mom would be close behind waving my swimsuit top in the air like an invading army taking no prisoners. "Little girls don’t run around shirtless," she reminded me for the hundredth time. I saw my brother (the real "white boy") dive into the ocean as I was held back in the name of manners and etiquette. The term "girl" took on a new meaning for me. "Girl" meant having to wear a shirt to run around and a top to swim in. My brother called out from the ocean "Just put it on already . . . what’s the big deal? You’re such a trouble maker!"

Other sounds of laughter and foamy surf pulled me towards the water. I joined my brother and our West African friend, Kabakai, in the warm waves. I looked into Kabakai’s face and saw something new there. Not only did I look white to him, but also for the first time, I realized he looked black to me. I obviously saw the physical difference before, but not until my encounter with the boys on the street did I see our color as Difference. As we playfully pushed each other under the waves, our eyes closed to avoid the stinging salt water. Beneath the ocean’s surface, I couldn’t see Kabakai’s chocolate skin, nor could I see my own pale shell. Underwater we were creatures of the sea, without color and without shape.

The stupid swimsuit top got in my way and kept me from feeling the warm waters of the Atlantic on my skin. I threw it off and dove into the surf. As I held my breath under the waves I felt peacefully alone. My Mom’s shouts of "Put your shirt on" faded and disappeared. All I could hear was the ssswiiishshsh of the ocean’s waters. All I could see was the blackness of my own eyes. Having had enough of this underwater world of non-color and void of sound, I shot up breaking the surface of the Atlantic. The sights and sounds of West Africa filled my senses. No matter how different and bizarre this land was, I much preferred it to the world underwater behind my own closed eyes.

Africa was becoming part of me, as I was becoming part of Africa.

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