The other day I was reading an article on Intermix by Canadian ‘Piss’ comedian Sabrina Jalees. (Piss, by her own definition = Pakistani/Swiss). She listed all the pros and cons of being mixed race. The one that struck a chord with me was “Your innocent mother-daughter love is easily mistaken for a ‘creepy sugar momma and her young misguided brown girl’ lesbian fling.” Not that AM and I have ever been mistaken for lesbians of course, but there was that time in Germany last year when the hotel proprietor seemed to think we’d be needing a double bed … ick. AM was only 13 at the time.
Anyway, her comment prompted me to think of the three major ways in which white mum’s relationships with our kids get mis-identified. From birth through primary school people think you’ve adopted them. (Aren’t you good!, they exclaim to you beside the swings).
Then there’s the Cougar phase I just referred to, starting sometime during puberty and lasting, I assume, a very, very long time.
And finally, I’m guessing that when I’m old and decrepit, people will think he’s a kindly care worker or volunteer at an old people’s home. (Isn’t hegood!, they will think to themselves).
I don’t really hold it against people. They’re usually just curious about us. I’m sure it’s good for my patience. This pic at right from when he was little, is for everyone who wonders who we are.
Circumcision seems to arouse incredible passion and tenacity among its supporters. These are usually – but not always – people from cultures where circumcision is a time-honoured cultural practice. It’s been my observation that in mixed relationships, it’s usually the partner from the non-circumcising culture that gives way, if there’s any disagreement. Well, that may promote marital harmony but seems pretty unfair to the child, who has no choice in the matter.
I don’t see culture as a defence for what I consider to be an oppressive practice. Culture is ever-changing and over time, people often repudiate cultural practices that used to be routine – there are, for example, plenty of African women now speaking out against female genital mutilation – and in my own culture many people now reject cultural practices around gender roles that used to be unquestioned.
I also don’t think much of the medical arguments. As the RACP says in its statement, the alleged benefits of male circumcision just don’t stack up against the risks of the operation and the ethical issues around perfoming non-reversible, non-essential surgery without anasthaesia on a minor. And if you are concerned about the big bogey HIV (some studies have shown it may have a protective effect agaist HIV transmission) inform yourself with this briefing paper by the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations.
I could write a thesis on this topic but that will do for now …. I will sit back and await the brickbats that may shower upon me for revealing that I oppose circumcision.
AM’s hair is a mess. There, I’m not mincing words. I have nothing against dreadlocks, in fact I like them, but the dreads he’s acquired through wilful neglect of his hair are just dry and yucky. Phew, feels better to get that out in the open.
AM has promised his stepmother Obaapa that he will come to her salon & get his dreads sorted out, (i.e. combed out and re-done) but – well, that was a month ago and nothing’s happened. Partly, as he’s the first to admit, this is due to laziness. But it’s also because he’s afraid he’ll have to cut them all off and have short hair again. And if it turns out that he does have nits somewhere in that birds nest, yes, that’s exactly what will happen, whether he likes it or not. However it may turn out alright … Obaapa recently spent a day combing out another mixed teen’s matted locks – so they could be corn-rowed, and today I happened upon a page with detailed instructions on “How to Comb Out Dredlocks”. It’s on a site that explains “How to do just about everything”, so the side bar lists related articles that I suspect may also be very helpful, such as “How to comb out a horse tail extension”, and “How to comb cats with matted hair”.
I have combed out AM’s before, but it was baby-dreads compared to what he’s got now. Whether this new information will actually get AM as far as Obaapa’s salon is another matter. We’ll see. perhaps I just have to accept my Matty, (as opposed to Natty) Dread.
And on a slightly related note – I discovered an Australian site with info and products related to dreds: http://www.dreadlocks.com.au/index.php - what was fascinating was that almost all the models are white!
AM knows how to play - under attack from two small cousins.
I was at an Australian African Network picnic on the weekend, and got to appreciate once more the benefits of being a member of this organisation. AAN is a group for people in mixed relationships and families, where one of the partners is of African background, and meeting other people at picnics & social events means you get a chance to share stories and experience with people who actually understand the challenges you face.
I took AM’s (half) brothers 50 Cedis, Abrantie and G Ketewa. AM, being now 15, scorns the whole concept of picnics – unless organised and attended by his friends – so of course he wasn’t there. Lucky I carry his pic in my wallet or no-one from that part of my life would recognise him anymore. In fact, when he got take-away from the latest AAN dinner party, one of my friends didn’t recognise him.
Another reason he doesn’t come to AAN events these days is because they are connected to what he considers my obsession with all things African. I was explaining this to someone at the picnic and she just nodded and laughed and said, “Yes, I’ve got friends who are going through exactly the same thing with their teens”. Well, it’s great to hear this from another source! I am not the only white parent who’s copping criticism.
I guess to AM it might look like I’m obsessed. I’m very involved with AAN, and as you can tell from this blog I love African music, dance, fabrics, food, etc, etc. I explained to him one day that with limited time on my hands, I usually choose to enjoy those things when I get the chance, rather than doing something more mainstream. Especially when African musicians like Salif Keita only come to Australia once in a blue moon! And also I like to learn about African history, politics and culture because – well, it helps me navigate all my different friendships and relationships. But there are also things about my own culture that I love just as passionately – literature, language, roast dinners, sponge cakes, bagpipes, Irish music, Dr Who, dry humour - the list goes on and on.
I like to think I’ve got a balance. But I’m not sure. Maybe he’s right to call me on it. It hasn’t been awful, angry criticism – more teasing really. Sometimes when watching TV he’ll accuse me of having a crush on a black character. “Don’t deny it, you know it’s true! Racist, racist!” he’ll crow. My denial only feeds his triumph over having scored against me. Or the other night I was helping him with a school assigment about gender and suggested he search online for pictures of super models – like Naomi Campbell. His response was something like “Ha! gotcha! You only thought of her because she’s BLACK! Ha ha!” I hurriedly cast around in my mind for a white supermodel. Ok, I confess, it took a minute or two to come up with Elle McPherson. “Racist, you’re racist!” he accused. “Oh yes, I’m so sorry, I do my best not to be, please, please forgive me!” I cried, pleading on my knees.
Now before you start worrying about us both, please note that this was all quite playful, even though the content might sound harsh. It ended in laughter, not tears. Play has always been an important part of the way I parent since AM was a baby. Kids are naturally playful and I believe that play helps them work through things that trouble them, express things they can’t in other ways, experiment with roles and power, become closer to their parents - and of course have fun. If as the adult you can stay light and relaxed when kids bring up hard stuff in play you can build trust, gain a lot of insight into their lives and help them heal from hurts. AM’s no longer small but I think these things about play are still true for him.
As well as that though, what he’s raising in this case is a real issue for me too. After all, he’s the black person in this scenario, so perhaps – probably? – he’s got a clearer perspective on my interests than I do. And it’s certainly true that white people often do objectify black people as exotic, fascinating, sexual, other. I’m sure I’ve been guilty of that at times. It may not be vilification, but it is still a kind of racism because it gets in the way of us seeing their full humanity. This has been historically embedded in my culture for centuries, it’s part of how we see and think of black people. As white people we need to be aware of that, reflect upon it, and stop doing it. Self-awareness and a willingness to change is more useful to everyone who cares about equality and justice, than getting defensive about a spot of unaware racism.
So when AM accuses me of being racist I don’t worry about the truth of it, I don’t take offence. Instead, I try and figure out how to keep the playfulness moving us forward. I take it as a good sign that AM can raise these issues with me in this way. A very good sign. For him, for me, for our relationship, and for the future.
Here are my two favourite resources on how play helps build closeness between parents and children:
MaameJ in her own design (tussah silk), 1985. Got that, it was the 80s!
Or he did when I was there in 1985. As I mentioned in a previous post, I was adventuring around Australia that year when I re-discovered African music while waitressing at Fitzroy Island. I lived in the Cairns area – mostly in tourist village Kuranda - for 8 months. I waitressed, bummed around, learned yoga, swam at the Barron River Gorge, tried to sell some weird clothes I’d designed at the Kuranda market, got involved with the campaigns of the local feminist group, travelled to Cape York in a Holden Kingswood. Ah yes, the 80s …
Actually the Kingswood didn’t get us right to the top, it conked out in Weipa and we flew back to Cairns. Another story.
So how did Jah fit into all this? Well FNQ attracted interesting kinds of people in those days. Probably still does, if you exclude the trillions of ravaging tourists from your assessment of the population. So it kind of makes sense that it was in Kuranda that I met the person who introduced me to more African music.
Ibina was a white rastafarian whose parents were building her a house on a rainforest block in Kuranda. I camped in her backyard on my days off from the island, with our mutual friend Breatharian. (I call her that because she was aspiring to live solely on air. Hmm. I think that ambition was stymied by her closet chocolate bar addiction).
Ibina was a retired dancer who had lived in Jamaica and danced in the US before coming back to Oz with her half-Jamaican son, JahLion. (Omigod, he must be nearly 40 by now!!) Ibina had dreds she could almost sit on and started each day with a fat spliff. She’d changed her anglo name to reflect Rasta beliefs and cooked a yummy vegetarian ital stew with sweet potatos and pigeon peas from a tree in her backyard. Here’s another recipe for it. So yes, Jah lived in far north Queensland.
Ibina inspired both Breatharian and I to learn dance. She was classically trained but her passion was Afro-style contemporary. She choreographed a special piece for the three of us to perform at the Kuranda festival that September. We practised on the spacious verandah of her half-finished house – surrounded on 3 sides by thick foliage. We danced to a Peter Tosh song: Rastafari Is.
Ibina on the left, Breatharian on the right, I'm the skinny one in the middle who's lost her balance.
Wow, almost brings tears to my eyes hearing it again. I can remember the first bit by heart. I can even remember the first few steps. The first bit was choreographed and when it moves into a long instrumental, we got to improvise for a while. It’s a long piece of music and about half way through Tosh stops singing and starts preaching, so Ibina very wisely only used about the first five minutes, then Peter Tosh faded out and Thomas Mapfumo faded in.
Thomas Mapfumo is another of those “master” African musicians – in this case a master of the mbira, or thumb piano. He’s not one of my favourites but this is a lovely piece of music. When I first heard it, it was another one of those gobsmacked moments where I’d never before heard anything like it. At the time, I had no idea who it was – it was just a track on some tape and Ibina didn’t know anything about it except that she liked it.
Breatharian and I didn’t get to dance to this, at least not in public. Ibina used it for her solo with a bunch of local toddlers pretending to be a rainstorm. You can hear the rain in the music, that’s the mbira. Breatharian and I reclined and admired her from the back of the stage, if I remember right.
Lulu's premiere public performance at Kuranda festival. Sorry it's so fuzzy.
The Kuranda festival was the climax of my stay in FNQ. A couple of friends from Sydney even came up for it. One of them, Lulu, had recently learned belly dancing and I will never forget seeing her dance for the first time. On Ibina’s rainforest verandah, in a deep blue skirt, the only light a candle. It was magic. Later, at the festival, Lulu discovered some Aboriginal women selling grass skirts and decided on the spot to buy one. She spent the afternoon sewing shells onto a brown singlet, then undulated to an enthusiastic crowd.
After the festival, Breatharian and I lost little time in fulfilling another dream, also inspired by Ibina: we hitch-hiked from Cairns to Adelaide, via Alice Springs and Uluru, to see the Alvin Ailey dance company perform. I’m not sure if Ibina had ever danced with them – her not actually being black, & all – but she certainly knew them, had gone to classes with them, was influenced by their style, and her passion was so infectious we put our crazy lives at risk to go and see them.
I’m embarrassed to admit that when we finally got there, it felt like a bit of an anti-climax, but then, we were exhausted. I’ve never really enjoyed seeing dance in huge theatres – I prefer small & intimate where you can see the sweat. And the facial expressions. Like at the Laura Dance festival. I don’t know what it’s like now, but when Breatharian and I went there a couple of months before Alvin Ailey, it was heart-stoppingly wonderful. I guess those vibrant, gutsy and dusty performances were a hard act for anyone to follow.
After Adelaide we took a train to Melbourne, Breatharian’s home town. From there I went to visit friends in Tassie, then I came back to Sydney to live, and Breatharian went to work in Weipa. I’m terrible at writing letters so I lost contact with both Breatharian and Ibina. I may never know if Breatharian fulfilled her goal of walking to Africa in a white robe, let alone whether she achieved breatharianism. I don’t know if Ibina’s even alive – she must be in her 70s by now if she is. When I went to Kuranda a few years ago I couldn’t even remember exactly where her house was, everything is so overgrown. Ah well. Those were the days.
AM, Owure and 50 Cedis enjoy burgers, chips and Bombe Alaska (!) at the Rexmer Hotel in Kumasi.
It’s school holidays and AM is eating my money. Movies, gaming cafes, junk food, pearl milk tea. Perhaps I should just not give him any money other than pocket money, but I’d rather he went out and had fun than moped around all day in front of the computer. Whatever, he’s going to have to get a job soon, I can’t afford him.
A few days ago he went out with a friend who’s just come back from a trip to grandparents in Ireland and Germany, who was complaining about how much he’d had to eat at his German Grandma’s table. It prompted AM to commiserate and recount his own overseas food trauma. He blamed his tendency to over-eat on our trip to Ghana. Personally, I just think it’s because he’s a child of extremes in everything, but his analysis is that he missed Aussie food so much that now he’s got unlimited access to it, he’s so relieved that he can’t stop when he should.
AM told his friend how in Ghana he’d had nothing to eat for weeks on end but rice with a bit of chilli and tomato stew. He missed out on the part of that story where he’d refused point-blank to eat anything else for the last couple of months of our stay. (Unless we went to a ‘European’ hotel , when he’d plow through burgers, chips, steak and pasta). Peanut soup, fried chicken, fresh fish stew with palm oil, all these and more were on offer, but no … now that’s what I call cutting off your nose to spite your face.
However, although it was frustrating to watch, I do understand how he was feeling. (He probably doesn’t think so). I remember feeling the same way at school camp, where at a similar age to him I ate nothing but peanut butter sandwiches for a week and then totally binged when I got home. I also went through much the same experience on my first trip to Ghana. I was only there for four weeks but it was probably only a matter of days before I was craving a simple ham sandwich or a salad – anything but spicy, oily, weird Ghanaian food! At that time (early 90s), it was impossible to find either ham or salad, at least in Kumasi, and I suspect it would still be difficult to find what I think of as good ham, although I hear you can get a decent salad in Accra these days. My saviour was the Chinese restaurant in Kumasi (tender beef! broccoli!), but it was expensive and I couldn’t eat there much.
I tried making my own salad, but it was a dismal, almost inedible disappointment. The lettuce, carrot and capsicum were bitter and the cucumber turned out to be zucchini (yuk). The tomato was ok but the dressing was awful.
After that, I gave up on substitutes for ‘European’ food and I have never, since, sought it out in Ghana. It’s never teh same as what you’ve grown up on. I’m sure that’s the expereince of expatriates everywhere. My approach these days is to appreciate what’s available rather than mourn for what’s not. However on that first trip it was awful because I got to a point where I just didn’t want to eat anything at all. It was unfamiliar, it was too hot and too heavy, and to make things worse I had a bad stomach bug. I guess that’s the same place AM was in, but for longer than I had to endure it, poor kid. I hope it hasn’t totally put him off.
The next time I went to Ghana I was lucky enough to be staying with my sister-in-law Serwaa, who is a very good cook. Between us, we soon figured out my favourite Ghanaian foods and I survived more than a month in the village, with absolutely no access to any foreign foods (except tinned milk, blech). I still lost weight, due to more or less chronic diarrhoea, but on the whole I was well fed and satisfied. And on our recent trip, I mostly had a wonderful time eating. I just avoided offal and it was all good. So I guess, even tho it had been ten years since the last visit, I’d acclimatised. Just hope AM gets to do the same.
For those who haven’t read my previous post on this topic, I’m referring to my love affair with African dance. I realise ‘African’ is a massive umbrella term so I’ll be more specific. The styles I’m in love with, and know the most about, are mainly West and Central African.
I left off in the last post implying that between 15 and 25 my life was a barren wasteland because I had no contact with African music. Strictly speaking this may not be true. I certainly was hearing a lot of reggae and two-tone, and it was the late 70s, early 80s, so it seems likely that I can across at least Fela Kuti. I can’t really remember. This is possibly because for several years I had quite a lot to do with certain recreational substances that affect memory, but I think that probably I really didn’t hear anything that grabbed me in the way the drum beat did when I was 15.
I did keep dancing during this time. I did classes and the odd performance with fringe dance & theatre groups. In one of them I even got to wear an extraordinarily uncomfortable, tower-like illuminated bird-headdress and slide down banisters on the outside of the Sydeny Opera House. In another I had to portray deep emotion whilst reciting a love poem. It wasn’t difficult, the object of my on-stage desire had his fly undone. It’s amazing how barely controlled hysterical laughter can come across as deep passion. So yes, when I say odd ….
I had friends who were volunteer DJs at the independent radio station Skid Row. Thanks to them I discovered all different kinds of music, including one of my all time favourites, Nigerian Master Guitarist King Sunny Ade. The first time I heard Sunny Ade I was mopping the dining room floor in a resort at Fitzroy Island, offshore from Cairns. This is because I was on an adventure around Australia and working for a few weeks as a waitress. The dining room was the only place on the island that had a cassette player, and a friend of mine had sent me of two cassette compilations of her own selection, which included tracks from a diverse bunch of musicians: various Sydney indie bands, Gil Scott Heron, Astrud Gilberto, and two tracks from Sunny Ade. Once again, I had never heard anything like it. And that’s why I figured it must be African. Even though it was far different to my previous experience of African music, no other explanation fitted. Turned out I was right, though I had to wait six months until I got back to Sydney to ask my friend. This is one of the tracks I heard:
This is the other one. I think of it as an anthem to all those men in nightclubs who want your number within 3 minutes of meeting you. Actually if Sunny Ade had been one of those men I may just have given it to him. Anyway …. one of the reasons I love his music is because he does things with a guitar that I didn’t know were possible. Subtle, complex, flowing, you want it to go on forever and it feels like it will. Wow. After growing up on a diet of strumming, this track was a revelation to me. Amazing things can be done if you put an African musician together with a few strings.
I was pleased to find out that he is still going strong & even performed in the US as recently as June. But why doesn’t he come to Australia!?!? I will tell you my theory about Australia and African musicians in my next post.
One of the difficult things lessons of parenting adolescents is that they still need you in the background of their lives but the moment you take up some space in the foreground, you become anathema, and sooo embarrassing.
This is one of the reasons I missed out on the Rokia Traore concert a couple of weeks ago. Rokia Traore is a singer from Mali who was in Australia for the WOMAD festival in Adelaide. I hadn’t quite got to the point of organising to go see her, when AM got an invitation. A (mixed) friend of his, whose father is a musician, had free tickets to Traore’s only Sydney concert and was inviting his four best friends to come with him, as a way of celebrating his 14th birthday. So I decided I wouldn’t go to it myself. I didn’t want to jeopardise AM’s fun – perhaps by dancing in public. Anyway, the idea of a quiet night in without him was pretty attractive.
Now as it happens, AM is going through an anti-African phase at the moment. His bad memories of our trip to Ghana have completely over-ridden the good memories and he shudders theatrically whenever anyone mentions the country or even the continent. Whenever I talk about this to (usually white) parents of younger mixed race children they get very, very worried. Many of us have put a lot of time and effort into trying to connect our children with Africa, so they don’t want to imagine it all evaporating after their child turns 12. I am less worried. A friend of mine with a son in his late teens went through a similar experience but her son now appears to have ‘come out the other side’ and is again prepared to contemplate, and perhaps even appreciate, his African heritage and connections. So I’m hoping AM will be the same. But yes, I still worry too.
So it was in this context that AM got invited to the concert and I held my breath – wondering if he would turn down the invitation when he realised Traore was (shudder) African. But the allure of going out on a school night with friends proved far stronger than his aversion to all things African. It also – to my relief – proved stronger than his prejudice against all music that is not Eminem.
And off he went. And I’m told he enjoyed it. True, the other boys all jumped around yelling right in front of the stage, whereas AM sat quietly in his seat and just tapped his foot. True, he didn’t come home raving about it. But he didn’t come home groaning about it either, and said it was “ok” when asked – which from an adolescent Australian male is high praise, really. So perhaps there is hope. Hope that AM will rediscover a wider world of music than Eminem, and hope that he will remember that Africa really isn’t all bad.
Saturday 21 March is Harmony Day in Australia, a day to celebrate our diverse society. It is also the United Nations’ International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. This is not a coincidence – it’s just that our government, in their wisdom, didn’t want to have a day that had the “R” word in its name. Instead they decided to call the day something that emphasised the positives about living in a multicultural society. Well, I’m all for that, but let’s not forget that racism’s still out there.
The date chosen in fact commemorates what came to be known as the Sharpeville massacre – when in 1960 police opened fire gainst a peaceful demonstration against apartheid in Sharpeville, South Africa, killing 69 people. That’s something we should never forget, although nearly 50 years on we can look back with pride and relief at the changes in the world, and the progress we’ve made against racism, since that shocking event.
Australians for Native Title and Reconcililation (ANTaR) have not forgotten the true meaning of the day and are are celebrating – if that’s the word – with a cute gimmick. By clicking on the lovely faces at left you can go to their site and get a sticker like this one (or smaller) to put on your facebook page, blog or website. You can also sign a pledge against racism.
I’ve often thought that AM and/or his brother 50 Cedis could have a great future in ‘ethnic’ comedy. They can do the accents, they know how to be irreverant and outrageous, and they’ve got plenty of material to draw upon in our mixed up bicultural family.
Ethnic comedy in Australia – at least in public – started in the 80s with Wogs Out of Work and in the past few years we’ve seen comedians surface like Arj Barka and Akmal Saleh. I’m thinking that in a few years, African Australian kids who’ve grown up in Australia – mixed or not – will take to the stage and give me a good belly laugh. Comedy as a way to relieve the tensions of intercultural families – I can’t wait.
And it seems I don’t have to – well, at least, not for an African-Australian comedian. Mujahid Ahmed is a Sudanese comedian by night and refugee resettlement worker by day who lives in Adelaide. (I know this because he said his mum washes clothes in the Torrens River … heheh). A profile of Muj is the lead news story on African Oz this week. Okay, some of his jokes are sexist, but he still had me rolling on the floor laughing. Even though he didn’t grow up here he has some spot-on observations about the African experience in Oz and – make sure you watch both parts of his show – living in an intercultural relationship.
Check him out . Part 1:
Part 2:
I hope he’ll inspire a whole new generation. I know there’s plenty of jokes just waiting to be told.
In late August the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) released a statement that reaffirmed their position that male circumcision should not be performed on infant boys as a routine procedure. Good on them! 
