Senior Year

I haven't posted as much as I'd planned since returning from Kenya. There are more things I can say about the summer, which I will do when I feel like it. I guess the impending start of my last year of college is a bit more on my mind right now.

I never thought that I'd be this unconcerned about what I'll do after I graduate. I'm amazed that not only am I not stressed out about having no thought-out options, I haven't even begun to really think about the year yet. The start of this year is on my mind, but I really haven't spent any time thinking about what it will be like. Why is that? Is it just because I don't want to face my true inner fear that I won't find anything to do that makes me happy? Maybe it's because if I do try to figure out my year before it starts, I'll just get overwhelmed and stressed out and I'm just trying to avoid that. Whatever the reason, I'm pre-occupied with other aspects of my life.

I like the idea that it's more important who I am than what I do. But it would be nice to have something to do that goes with who I want to be. There should be a job that pays you well enough to live and get medical care, and the responsibility of the job is to be a loving, caring friend and someone who genuinely wants to see and work towards change in the world he sees around him. Applicants must recognize their own weaknesses and shortcomings and be willing to live with the fact that the world will continually disappoint them, but in spite of that they must continue to grow and have hope.

It'd be a tough job, probably tougher than being a lot of other things that pay better. How much harder is it to be someone of worth than to do something that's worth a lot? I face the temptation everyday to just go make money. I'm pretty sure that if I wanted to I could find a way to make a lot of money, and on the days when I look at my bank account and realize that it's never going to get too much bigger, I want to run screaming for the nearest LSAT test and go to law school.

But in my better moments, I'm content with having little money. I don't want the responsibility of having to figure out the right way to handle a lot of money. I have enough trouble trying to manage my time and abilities in responsible ways, I don't need to add the money variable to the mixture. I also realize that I'm yet to really feel the impact of little money. My parents still pay for a lot of stuff and I have very few monetary responsibilities.

The moral of the story- creatively come up with an imaginary job that pays an imaginary salary while daydreaming about all the things you wish were different in your life so that you can avoid dealing with the harsh reality that your last year of school starts in 3 days and you have no idea what the future holds.

Favored Minority

I've heard several people say that it is a good idea to intentionally put yourself into positions where you are the minority race or ethnicity or religion from time to time. As a member of the majority race in the U.S., it is easy to slip into the mindset that all people are just like me because I can choose to go places where literally everyone looks just like me. Obviously there are layers to diversity that go beyond just racial diversity; religion, economic status, and ethnic heritage all are factors that make a person the majority or the minority at different points. But I tend to feel like in an environment where you don't know anybody else, race is the most obvious indicator of minority status. I've been the minority in some situations in my life, but with the exception of last summer and this summer, I'm normally the majority race wherever I go. And last summer, though I was certainly the minority in my neighborhood in Philly, I didn't have to go very far to be the majority. I could just take a bus a few neighborhoods over and I'd certainly be with many other white folk (which has as much to do with economics as race-the two issues are certainly tied).

But this summer was the most extreme in terms of immersion into a culture where I was the minority in race, ethnicity, and wealth. I was still in the majority religion, but since 80% of Kenya professes to be Christian, I don't think that element was too much a factor in the way I was regarded most of the time. In the U.S., minorities are rarely favored. Our very government operates by majority rule, of course giving respect to minority opinions. Sadly, such an approach to government (which really isn't bad in itself) is how our society works when it comes to race. Whites are favored and minorities are given respect (supposedly), but since they're minorities, their voices are rarely listened to and rarely given the dignity they deserve.

But in Kenya, something was different. The word for white person in Swahili is "mzungu" which means literally "ghost." It was the name that people used for the colonizers when they first came to Kenya and evolved to be the common word for an English person. I had expected to receive some suspicion and mistrust on the part of the Kenyans because of my heritage, but the fact is that white people in Kenya are the distinguished and revered minority. "Mzungu" isn't derogatory, like the American word for black people that was commonly used for so long. In fact, wherever we went in Kenya, little children would shout "mzungu!" with awe and regard. We were raised up to near-god status because people associate white person with money and power and influence. I wanted "mzungu" to be a term of hate more than a term of awe. That would be more understandable and justifiable, even if it would still be really sad.

And so, really for the first time in my life, I was treated differently because of my skin color. People assumed we (on the trip) had lots of money, so we always were charged 2 or 3 times as much for things. Luckily, you can barter everywhere for things in Kenya, but there was something discomforting about being charged more just because of my skin color. But again, the disturbing thing is that it wasn't out of a (voiced) dislike or distrust of white people, but a belief that white people have lots of money and are better off in the world (which is true, much of the time.).

The saddest thing about race in Kenya is not even about being regarded as a special and favored minority. The saddest thing is that some Kenyans have come to believe that white people are just inherently better, smarter, and richer than black people. One of our teams told a story about how some children in their school were asking questions about Americans and were convinced that American children were born with more intelligence and capability than African children.

There is so much more I could say about being the minority this summer. It was so much different than I expected, and made me really wrestle with my own racial identity and the history of my race and culture. I do highly recommend being in positions where you are the minority. But it is so easy in a place like Kenya to buy into the lie that whites are better, or more special. That was a temptation I had not expected to face this summer.