A’s pointless chatter

Recently I had this conversation with a friend about the meaning of skin color and your whereabouts. He, a well educated, smart kid, scored a UN gig right upon graduation and just recently moved to Vienna for work. I asked him a couple of days ago how Vienna was treating him, and this triggered an emotional recollection of his latest adventures in the city that had given him a very mixed welcome. He is African American and even though people with darker skin color have become more and more an every day phenomenon, somehow the European mind has not quite yet warmed to the extra dosage of melanin.
He complained particularly about three incidents that had happened to him ever since he set foot on the old continent, subsequently moving to the city with the sound of never ceasing music eternalized by white composers centuries ago.
The most recent reminder of the country’s past that has long been wiped out in theory and history, while sadly sometimes still lingering in people’s minds had confronted him only a few days ago. He was out with friends in one of the districts with the largest percentage of immigrants alongside working-class natives. They went to some Irish pub whose name he had not revealed to me and were refused to be served. Supposedly they would only serve regulars there. What a bunch of bullshit! My friend did not feel the matter worth arguing and they moved on…on two more occasions he had encountered similar reactions when trying to enter a dance club.
He also told me about a friend of his, who was also in Vienna for work, working for the US State Department and also of African American descent. The guy had told him about his kid who was shunned by the other kids in school. Sadly, your lessons in life are often learned early on.

I met Jeff several months ago on the train heading to visit my parents for the weekend. I was reading The New Yorker and he addressed me in English where I had bought it because he had a hard time finding English magazines in town. I pointed him to a couple of places and we began to chat a little. He told me that he had just recently moved here from Liberia and was trying to make things work.
Before I got off I gave him my copy of the magazine that I had finished reading and apologised for one of the pages that were torn. He was really happy and we exchanged email addresses.
I haven’t seen Jeff ever since but we have emailed back and forth a few times. He has told me about his family. How his father had died back in 1996 during the war in Liberia, his mother and siblings were also forced to leave the country and he himself had escaped to Europe in hope of a better life.
It has been hard for him, people were not always welcoming, but in the meantime he has managed to find work in an African art shop and found a small apartment in Vienna.

Another friend had told me about this flight attendant he had met once on a flight. Apparently a very nice and charming lady and she told him this heartbreaking story, of how she had been engaged to a guy that she had dated for 11 years and just recently ended the engagement. They too were a mixed couple, she was African American, and somehow the gap to his side of the family could never be fully bridged. Eventually she gave up hope and decided to move on.

Stories like the ones above make sad, sad because you realize people are not being blamed for wrongdoing but for the essence of who they are. Does the extra dosage of melanin make such a difference in people’s minds? Apparently it still does. State legislation does guarantee for equal opportunities and does not make a difference in people’s complexion, in theory, in practise there is still a long way to go.

… I would nonetheless like to conclude with a positive counter example, simply to point out the other side and a shimmer of hope.
I had once started attending a legal anthropology class and my teacher was one of the most remarkable people I have ever met in my life. Equipped with two PhDs in law and anthropology he was also an amateur DJ, promoting Reggea, Ragga, and all related tunes. He was conveying the meaning of legal anthropology by playing Reggea songs and movie footage in class and often took a small group of students on one of his field trips to the African continent. He is the blackest white person I have ever met and a true inspiration. He could probably motivate even the last dozing idiot in class.
I too felt inspired and walked out of my first class with a string of new ideas. I emailed him the same day, talked about some of my thoughts and concerns regarding research and ethics etc. He responded soon after and thanked me for my input and asked for my permission to read out passages of my email in class without mentioning the author’s name. I agreed and later even forgot that I had done so. Next time I was sitting in class, unaware and unprepared he mentioned a student who had emailed him and that he would like to conclude the class by reading her email out loud. Even though he never mentioned my name I felt as if everyone around me knew that those were my words. I felt a little uneasy but was truly impressed that he dedicated a good portion of his class to discuss my ideas. This is how our brief exchange started. After class I responded to his input by email and we emailed back and forth a few more times before it fizzled out.
Nonetheless, I would like to acknowledge him at this point, for he has unbeknownst to him inspired me.