Racial Profiling

Picture a baby, a white one, in the US. The parents are lovingly coddling the baby, while it slurps and babbles adorably. A black person approaches the baby, and the baby reacts by screaming in terror and clawing at its mother to get away from the stranger. In the US, we would recoil in horror at such a scene, label the baby ‘racist,’ and blame the parents for the baby’s reprehensible behavior. Now picture the scene in Burkina Faso, but reverse the races of the family and approaching stranger. The response to the baby’s reaction, by all participants, is laughter and howls of delight. Except that when that stranger is me, I am faking the laughter to save face, because I still can’t understand why the baby thinks it should be afraid of me.

As many of you know, I am an American of Korean descent. I have rarely experienced overt racism in America, probably because my generation is extremely concerned with being politically correct. My time in France was certainly more speckled (people saying things like “I have never seen a Japanese girl who could speak French”), but here in Burkina Faso it is the most pronounced. People frequently yell “Chinoise,” “Japonaise” or “Blanche” to me on the street. Although I don’t characterize myself as any of those, I’ve become used to hearing it. When in a conversation I will correct people and say that I am American, which doesn’t necessarily mean white, but I don’t respond to drive-by name-calling. Once, while visiting the grand marché in Bobo where I was repeatedly pummeled by racial epithets, my friend Brekke became increasingly irritated and annoyed by the harassment and asked me if it was a frequent occurrence. I told him that it happens so often that I don’t react anymore; he was so incensed that he couldn’t keep himself from reacting.

I try to keep an even-keeled reaction whenever I am profiled by my white skin or Asian face. Babies scream in terror at the sight of me, children incessantly call me out on the street, women will without warning grab and caress my hair, etc. Even the most good-natured and well-meaning people have gaffes that don’t mean much here but would be extremely awkward in the US. For example, a Japanese NGO came to visit an organization I work with, and unsurprisingly during the visit there was a lot of chatter in Japanese. A woman who I consider one of the nicest people I’ve ever met and spends a lot of time chastising kids for calling me and Dave tubabu (white), who has repeatedly identified me as American to other Burkinabé and urges her fellow countrymen to not see us differently just because of the color of our skin, asked me if I could understand what the Japanese NGO workers were saying. She knows that I am American, and that I am of Korean ancestry, but couldn’t help herself but to ask. It was a little cringe-worthy but I handled it gracefully.

In my opinion, the most prominent downfall of being a lighter skin color than the Burkinabé is price negotiation. Very rarely will I be offered the “real” price for an item, and I am genuinely shocked when the first price offered is not grossly inflated. You would think that, conversely, when vendors give the white price and not the right price that I wouldn’t be too upset… but I still am. Even 9+ months deep into living in Burkina Faso, I still get angry when people double or triple the price of an item just because I’m the one asking for it. I guess I can’t blame a vendor for trying to make the most money possible, but I feel that pricing differentiated by race is, well, racist. Just yesterday I tried to buy a new cooking pot and the sales assistant called the owner to ask the price, being sure to specify that a chinois muso (“Chinese woman”) wanted to buy it. The price he offered was predictably triple the actual price and I was so annoyed that he had to specify my race in inquiring about the price that I didn’t even bother to correct him about not being Chinese and just left.

It’s not all negative, however. Sometimes Dave and I are accorded privileges solely based on our whiter skin. Dave and I were once at a cell-phone store and joined the end of a 40 person line for customer service. Upon seeing us, the manager insisted we cut the line and we were served by the next available agent. Another time, Dave, Brandon and I crashed a high school cultural ceremony, where the organizers insisted we take seats near the VIPs instead of standing in the back with other crashers. However, these incidents make me even more uncomfortable than the negative ones. Maybe somehow I feel it’s more honorable to be treated like crap due to the color of one’s skin than to be regaled and benefit from it.

I also heard a story about a volunteer who became friends with the transport driver in her village. He knew her name was Rebecca (or whatever) and called her Rebecca to her face all the time. Once she looked at the passenger manifest for the bus and saw that he noted her as nasara (‘white’ in the Mooré language) and not Rebecca. She was really angry about it, but not totally surprised either. I think the main consequence of Burkinabé identifying us by appearance is that in doing so, they continually distinguish themselves from us. Whenever they characterize me by my appearance, what they’re really saying is “You are different than me, and that is the most important thing about you.” I know it’s unrealistic to think that I might someday blend in with the Burkinabé, but I really dislike how they keep drawing battle lines between me and them. We don’t share a culture, but we’re not totally disparate either. As JFK said, “we all breathe the same air.” An important part of success in the Peace Corps is integration within the community, but it’s a two-way street. I can speak Jula like a pro, wear the loudest African clothes this side of Mali and eat tô thrice daily, but if people refuse to see past my race its hard to convince them that we’re more similar than not. I’ll definitely keep trying, but it’s thus far been an uphill battle.