“It’s okay,” he said. “It was kind of funny. My friend Danny was laughing about it.”
“Why did your friend think it was funny?”
“Because it was!”
“You wanted her to give you the sunscreen, too, right?”
“I guess so,” he said with a shrug. “I just want to be regular.”
She hugged him. Later, she went to the store and bought him a big bottle of sunscreen, and the next time she visited, she saw it lying on his dresser, forgotten and unused.
Understanding America for the Non-American Black: American Tribalism
In America, tribalism is alive and well. There are four kinds—class, ideology, region, and race. First, class. Pretty easy. Rich folk and poor folk.
Second, ideology. Liberals and conservatives. They don’t merely disagree on political issues, each side believes the other is evil. Intermarriage is discouraged and on the rare occasion that it happens, is considered remarkable. Third, region. The North and the South. The two sides fought a civil war and tough stains from that war remain. The North looks down on the South while the South resents the North. Finally, race. There’s a ladder of racial hierarchy in America. White is always on top, specifically White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, otherwise known as WASP, and American Black is always on the bottom, and what’s in the middle depends on time and place. (Or as that marvelous rhyme goes: if you’re white, you’re all right; if you’re brown, stick around; if you’re black, get back!) Americans assume that everyone will get their tribalism. But it takes a while to figure it all out. So in undergrad, we had a visiting speaker and a classmate whispers to another, “Oh my God, he looks so Jewish,” with a shudder, an actual shudder. Like Jewish was a bad thing. I didn’t get it. As far as I could see, the man was white, not much different from the classmate herself. Jewish to me was something vague, something biblical. But I learned quickly. You see, in America’s ladder of races, Jewish is white but also some rungs below white. A bit confusing, because I knew this straw-haired, freckled girl who said she was Jewish. How can Americans tell who is Jewish? How did the classmate know the guy was Jewish? I read somewhere how American colleges used to ask applicants for their mother’s surnames, to make sure they weren’t Jewish because they wouldn’t admit Jewish people. So maybe that’s how to tell? From people’s names? The longer you are here, the more you start to get it.
CHAPTER 18
Manama’s new customer was wearing jeans shorts, the denim glued to her backside, and sneakers the same bright pink shade as her top. Large hoop earrings grazed her face. She stood in front of the mirror, describing the kind of cornrows she wanted.
“Like a zigzag with a parting at the side right here, but you don’t add the hair at the beginning, you add it when you get to the ponytail,” she said, speaking slowly, overenunciating. “You understand me?” she added, already convinced, it seemed, that Mariama did not.
“I understand,” Mariama said quietly. “You want to see a photo? I have that style in my album.”
The album was flipped through and, finally, the customer was satisfied and seated, frayed plastic hoisted around her neck, her chair height adjusted, and Mariama all the time smiling a smile full of things restrained.
“This other braider I went to the last time,” the customer said. “She was African, too, and she wanted to burn my damned hair! She brought out this lighter and I’m going, Shontay White, don’t let that woman bring that thing close to your hair. So I ask her, What’s that for? She says, I want to
clean your braids, and I go, What? Then she tries to show me, she tries to run the lighter over one braid and I went all crazy on her.”
Mariama shook her head. “Oh, that’s bad. Burning is not good. We don’t do that.”
A customer came in, her hair covered in a bright yellow headwrap.
“Hi,” she said. “I’d like to get braids.”
“What kind of braids you want?” Mariama asked.
“Just regular box braids, medium size.”
“You want it long?” Mariama asked.
“Not too long, maybe shoulder length?”
“Okay. Please sit down. She will do it for you,” Mariama said, gesturing to Halima, who was sitting at the back, her eyes on the television. Halima stood up and stretched, for a little too long, as though to register her reluctance.
The woman sat down and gestured to the pile of DVDs. “You sell Nigerian films?” she asked Mariama.
“I used to but my supplier went out of business. You want to buy?”
“No. You just seem to have a lot of them.”
“Some of them are real nice,” Mariama said.
“I can’t watch that stuff. I guess I’m biased. In my country, South Africa, Nigerians are known for stealing credit cards and doing drugs and all kinds of crazy stuff. I guess the films are kind of like that too.”
“You’re from South Africa? You don’t have accent!” Mariama exclaimed.