As a person who is an eternal pessimist and a harborer of substantial anxiety, I have a tendency to make decisions based on a desire to avoid negative outcomes. Sometimes that means something as big as leaving a job, and sometimes it means something as small as taking a taxi to work.
About three or four weeks into my internship at St. Vincent’s, I was offered an opportunity to shadow a geriatric social worker. I would report at 9am, and spend the day at the aged care facility which was a part of our hospital system. So far, I had taken a whopping two tram lines on the massive Public Transit of Victoria system, so I wasn’t even sure of how to get where I needed to be. Additionally, a large portion of my transit experience was marked by mid-trip epiphanies in which I realized I was heading in the wrong direction, since traffic flows on the left-hand side in Australia. Needless to say, I lacked faith in myself to get to a new location promptly.
And so I called a cab.
As had become custom when I rode in taxis or Ubers, my driver was quick to ask where I was from once my foreign accent resonated from the backseat. I followed the standard conversation script half-mindedly, scrolling through news updates while talking to the driver:
“Oh, I’m from the United States; I’m here for an internship through my graduate program. How about you, where are you from?”
“India. I’ve been here seven years. What part of America are you from?”
“Michigan. It’s in the middle of the country; the state that looks like a mitten on a hand.”
“And where are you from originally?”
My tone hardened a bit.
“The US. I’m American.”
“I see. But surely your people immigrated there from somewhere, yes?”
My stomach dropped. Until then, no one had ever hit me with the “But where are you from from?” question. For me, it only existed somewhere out in the world of Twitter vents and fiery YouTube vlogs.
The last time I’d had to face the lack of genealogical knowing that all too often comes with being a Black American was in a class during the winter semester. It focused on children and families, and our professor asked us to create a personal genogram (essentially a slightly more complex family tree) which went as far back as possible. Gratefully, he acknowledged that estrangement or marginalization may make it difficult for people to fill theirs out, and just asked that we do our best. The sentiment was appreciated, but didn’t change ties broken by kidnappers and blurred by auctioneers. It didn’t erase knowing that I am “related” to white families because men who owned the bodies of my family members forced my matriarchs to bear children who would be nothing more than chattel because of the “one drop rule.”
“I wouldn’t necessarily use the word ‘immigrate’,” I replied with a wistful laugh. “My people were slaves, brought to America against their will.”
“What?!”
My driver looked at me, visibly aghast, in the rearview mirror. He had no idea about the Atlantic slave trade or its horrors. Channeling griots past, I launched into a US History lesson which has been sanitized and minimized in ways which would cause my ancestors to roll in their graves. The lazy pace of rush hour traffic gave me ample time to give an overview of slavery, Jim Crow, and present-day oppression which left him floored. Along the way he asked several clarifying questions, but what was perhaps most poignant–and painful–was about restorative justice:
“So what are they doing to right it? You know, how are they helping the descendants of these people to have better lives or to find their lost family?”
A person who ten minutes prior had no clue about the historical brutalization of Black Americans grasped the very concept–reparations–which has been deemed laughable by many of those who know it in depth. When I explained that no, that doesn’t seem like it will be happening, his anger became tinged with defeat.
“But this is America we’re talking about, for crying out loud. America.”
That was exactly it, though. No matter how high we are placed on a pedestal by outsiders–or even ourselves–the truth is that evil is in the deepest roots of the United States. It has frequently served as its sustenance. That evil turned America into my default homeland, the place I claim despite nearly 250 years of evidence that it does not claim me.
She is the villainous stepmother to my fairytale princess; I simultaneously love and loathe her, because she is all I know … for now.
Love it! I remember the first time I was asked the “where are you from from?” question. It was in Toronto. I was lowkey mad because I answered when I said Detroit lol. I knew if I said Jamica or somewhere else they would’ve excepted the answer. Even in saying those countries they wouldn’t ask the same question even though people of the islands where in the same boat as my ancestors. I started focusing on why people discredit African Americans as a people/culture despite slavery. I grew to love and accept African American culture more and notice the differences between it and other African decendent cultures. In noticing the differences I also noticed many similarities though. But all in all I am proud to be African American and have the same strength my ancestors had to endure hardship. But I’m gone need my reparations as well lol.