What Lies Beneath

Tuesday 24th January 2012
What Lies Beneath

African Albino Descrimination

 

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you realise I have a way of trying
to communicate my views and ideas of the world around me.
However this time I am at a loss for words so please forgive me if this article
is incoherent and rambling as my heart is heavy.

Over the thirty years of my life  I have come across a lot of strange
things that I don’t understand
try as I might. People seem  to have an irrational fear of the other. Even though science
has come a long way since Eugenics . People still cling today to socially constructed ideas
of  difference .It is played out right now on school playgrounds ,
in offices, in communities all over the world. I am black and
I am against  racism from white or black in all its forms

Racism is defined as a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various
human races  determine cultural or individual achievement,
usually involving the idea that one’s own race  is
superior and has the right to rule others.

2. a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or
fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.

3. hatred or intolerance of another race  or other races.

I don’t want to over simplify the complexities of systematic and
institutional racism. I don’t know if there is another word other than racism that encapsulates this topic.
Today I want to bring something to your attention.
I want to focus on a humanitarian crisis/crime being perpetrated in this
instance by  blacks on black.
It is of special interest to me because I have first-hand experience of this.

As a child of about 7 or 8 years of age on the island
of Montserrat ,the  primary school I attended  was having a parents evening.
I remember how especially hard I had worked on various arts crafts and other
projects for the occasion. Reason being for the very first time I was being honoured by
having in my opinion a very special lady attend.

In the past My gran aunt  or My Godmother or even my  Godfather
would attend. This person was none other than my mother. There was always one reason or
another why she couldn’t attend one in the past but I was soon to discover
the real reason of what lied beneath her façade of excuses.

On the day I set up my table for display we were allowed to go
home and freshen up and return with our parents in the evening.
This is where the details in my memory become very vague.
However I remember we were a little late on arriving.

I don’t remember the reaction of the rest of my class but
I remembered this one boy Sean Howson saying something horrifically
rude about my mothers appearance. I remember feeling utterly
humiliated and embarrassed when the scales fell from my eyes as I realised
in my little head there was some measure of truth in what he had said.
I recall the hot tears that streamed involuntarily down my cheeks and the lump in my throat.
The next thing I recall is of being at home screaming at my mother
that I hated her, as every fibre in my little pre-pubescent body trembled and shook.
I don’t recall her reaction but it must have been one of tremendous hurt
and shock that her sweet, affectionate, polite firstborn child could hurl
such insults dripping with poisonous venom at her.

My mother is  an Albino but the overwhelming love  and
innocence I had not even noticed the significance of her skin colour not matching my own.

What I remember is my grand aunt carefully explaining to me that
I was not adopted and that she had
been a witness to her going through hours of excruciating labour pain
to bring me into the world.  After which I distinctly remember receiving a
sound beating at the hand of my my gran aunt  and deservedly so.

I remember weeping in my mothers lap some years later when she told me for the
very first time  of her school days and how she was cruelly treated .
In class the teachers put her at the back and called her dumb because

she couldn’t read the blackboard. On the playground she was bullied and had her
head dunked in toilets. She found it difficult to go outside because of the sun and so
it worsened the situation of building friendships as its on the
playground most childhood friendships are formed.

This is one my earliest memories and  makes it clear at least for me
that in issues of race and difference children are colour blind and it’s
the adults in a child’s life that help to define their  ideas as well as
the media’s powerful impact on their attitudes when they grow up.
I am posting below two very sad news stories of the plight of Albinos in Africa.
We as human beings are too quick to catergorise people that we class as different from us.
There are those of us that shout about Racism and the injustices received from the time of
Transatlantic Slave Trade to 2012. However we participate in similar acts of hate towards the percieved  other

,I feel it is all just relative depending on time  and place.
If we study history we will see at the roots of it all is Hate and
ignorance and Lies and Satan at the helm of it all. We have free will to
side with LOVE, GOD IS LOVE or the Lies of the FATHER OF LIES Satan