Obama and Collars

After my post awhile back about collars, and why I may not like them as much as most, I thought these emerging photographs of world leaders at the APEC meetings are appropriate.

Asia is on the rise my friends.
Photograph from the BBC.
another photo from AP, with PM of Singapore, Lee Hsien Loong

The Michael Jackson tragedy has given us a round of military jackets and hats, we're definitely nostalgic looking to the Victorian coat and riding breeches. But I think the so-called mandarin collar may make a comeback after a brief renaissance earlier in this century (2002-04).

What's Wrong with the Harvard Magazine Cover

I rarely take time to read Harvard's alumni magazine in the odd month it finds its way to my latest address. I saw my brother's from several months ago lounging on top of the upstairs toilet in my parent's house during a recent visit. He's living in Tema, Ghana now on a Fulbright and I don't really think he uses snail mail. You can catch him on skype on the gphone he carries everywhere with him.

But when my husband brought in our two copies this month from the Berkeley mail last night, I knew this time they weren't going straight to the recycling bin. Before I even opened mine, I went online, found the url to the cover photo and wrote a tweet (which also appears on my linked facebook profile):

Not sure how I feel about the latest Harvard Alumni Magazine cover http://bit.ly/C657A

"Harvard" is finally taking "Africa" seriously! Yay!

I spent 12 years at Harvard- as an undergraduate doing a bachelor's degree and then PhD in the History of Science Department, and then a two year post doc at a research center.

No one was particularly keen on Africa. I had to do a study abroad program through a Black College Consortium in South Carolina when I wanted to go to Ghana in 1997. I was finally able to take Twi classes on campus just as I was completing requirements for my PhD in 2003, but not before I'd struggled through German and French to fulfill language requirements. Imagine if as a heritage student I had spent 12 years studying my father's language, which he was unable to fully transmit in the struggles of immigrant life in America?

So, yes, now Africa is hot! hot! hot!

I see this in the African history survey course I teach at UC Berkeley- enrollment doubled this fall. The UC study abroad program to Ghana has added a new semester program, and students line up to talk to me about going to the University of Ghana-- how do they learn Twi or Ga? what should they wear? what kind of malaria medicine should they take? how can they get involved with an NGO or research project?

Look, we have a president now with ties to Kenya. And everyone in the US has forgotten the independence struggles that for a time made "whites" feel unwelcome on the continent. It's cool to go to South Africa. Celebrities are frequently using orphans from Ethiopia or Malawi as their foil.

So, what's so wrong with the Harvard Magazine cover?

Inside, there are several articles on students 'serving' in various African countries or as the website puts it "Immersed in Africa: Students and service at a new frontier"

[Cough- Africa is a new frontier? For whom? The edge of what? The latest space slated for recolonization?]

These include students of apparently diverse ethnic backgrounds doing work on slum renewal, water access, slavery history, malaria control etc. etc. This is great to see, and really I have few problems with the articles which I've started to skim.

I'm glad that Harvard is taking the Africa language program seriously, and hope that the magazine issue will help raise funds for Rita Breen and her tireless efforts for Harvard's Center for African Studies. I remember working for a Harvard alumni family one summer. The grandmother explained that they always gave to the Harvard baseball team, because they always had. I heard rumors that their locker rooms were by then etched in gold and sided in teak, but she could not be convinced to donate to new causes at the University. The women's choir, I suggested, seeing as how the male ones were better endowed given the gendered history of the university...

Several questions I have with possible answers on the cover choice:

1) Why did none of the other students featured in the magazine appear on the cover?

The photo of is a classic shot, no less because he is apparently white in complexion and wearing a Harvard 2010 t-shirt. He projects the Harvard brand, and is surrounded by smiling, relatively well clothed, not visibly starving brown children. It reminds me of Skip Gates in Africa for his controversial PBS show, actually. The smiling geeky, scholar eager to learn. Further, as my former classmates have been noting, Africa remains pastoral, not only in this shot, but in the stories the articles portray. No skyscrapers here. (As another Facebook Friend noted in his semiotic reading of the cover's lettering, some thought went into this. The "R" in Harvard disappears both on the protagonist's t-shirt behind his backpack strap and on the cover behind his head). I recall when a friend made fundraising calls to alumni in college. "I can't give to that school anymore," an aging alumn told her, "The place looks like Hong Kong now." Ah, all is right with the world, Harvard still admits white alumni kids.

2) Why do we not have the names of the children on the cover?

has no idea who they are, nor does it matter for the purposes of the Harvard establishment. These are not his relatives, they are a foil for his ambitions.

3) Why is "Harvard" in "Africa" during a fiscal crisis?

Let's face it, Africa is relatively cheap. A colleague is going next week to an American Studies conference in South Korea; I'm saving up for the next Society for the Social Studies of Science meeting in Tokyo. Who can do study abroad in Europe with a weak dollar and Asia clearly no longer needs "our" assistance.

4) Back to the cover, why is the white Harvard boy surrounded by children?

Because this is an enduring fantasy of Africa as last frontier. Let's look at another iconic image, from the period of colonial expansion and occupation in the late 19th century. Here, we see the US explorer, Henry Morton Stanley, on the payroll of the notorious Belgian monarch, King Leopold II. Stanley "discovered" a way to walk overland from Tanzania to the mouth of the Congo River. In actuality, he relied on his team of guides who had for many years made journeys through this terrain to procure ivory and enslaved individuals. The constant is of a white- skinned man surrounded by the infants of Africa. Through such images, Africa continues to be seen as a place not of adults, but of children.



5) Why am I worried?

These are powerful images. My husband may say, what is the concern. I see leaders in Africa, Ghana particularly, merely bemused when kind-hearted foreigners come to play with orphans or put bednets over sleeping babes. These are areas where they can little damage, the African elites surmise. But, what is at stake is that foreigners seek to sidestep African governments, which they see as corrupt, weak, and out of touch with the disenfranchised. Foreign intervention continues to establish duplicate welfare institutions when rather, I believe, African governments (despite their frequent weaknesses) must be called upon to create viable structures to serve their citizens.

In other words, why did we see a growth in orphanages in Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda or Malawi in the last decade? Foreign donors created a new industry, pulling young people away from social networks, and providing governments with easy ways to ignore their youngest and most vulnerable citizens.

So, these are my first thoughts on what I expect will be a lovely little debate for the next month.

Harvard has "discovered" Africa! Ahh-- advisors and colleagues who probably could not have found Ghana on a map, now want to travel to the continent and write up articles, students want to dance and drum and eat with natives. We have some fun times ahead of us with simple mistakes like this cover, as new fantasies for Africa begin to unfold.

***
Incidentally, here is a recent photo:

With longtime friends, Ato Wilburforce and Sandra Ahwireng in Tema, Ghana in August.

Gender and Sports

The probing of the South African running starlet Caster Semenya to determine her gender is reminiscent of earlier scrutiny of Sara Baartman, also known as 'Hottentot Venus' during the 19th century. Baartman's genitalia ended up in a jar in a museum in Paris until repatriated to South Africa several years ago.


The statements of Semenya's competitors make one hope something was lost in translation:

'Just look at her,' said Mariya Savinova of Russia, who finished fifth. Elisa Cusma of Italy, who was sixth, told Italian journalists: 'These kind of people should not run with us. For me, she's not a woman. She's a man.'

My husband says I should 'relax'. But how can I when the NYTs prints such a ludicrous statement?

The Bantu, a group of indigenous South African people, often are hermaphrodites but they do not always have obvious male genitalia, said Dr. Maria New, an endocrinologist at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. They are genetically female yet have both testes and ovaries.

I am not trying to deny a culture of gender plurality among Blacks, either.
This statement is just so problematic. And apparently was slightly edited in the online version:

The Bantu, a group of indigenous South African people, may be more predisposed to being hermaphrodites but they do not always have obvious male genitalia.

'Bantu' refers to a linguistic family of languages spoken widely in Africa South of the Sahara. Bantu linguistic roots are also found in so-called European languages on the continent, including Afrikaans and French, Portuguese, and English creoles.

Bantu has historically been a derogatory term, for instance, South Africa had a policy of Bantustans, segregated homelands for people who were assigned membership in different ethnic groups or 'tribes'. There was also Bantu education, which focused on vocational skills training.

To say that Bantus are a South African tribe is erroneous. Bantu, despite its linguistic basis has become code for 'Black', 'Negroid', or 'African' and is linked to a long history of scientific racism. Basically, the quoted doctor from Mt. Sinai is saying that all Blacks in Africa tend to be hermaphrodites.

These are the kinds of things that make me keep teaching African history...

From Michael to Gates to Obama

Especially as I am now in Ghana, the idea that any of these men are Black seems less plausible.

Yet, our obsession continues. How can a Black man be simultaneously White, a Professor and a Criminal, a President and a Non-Citizen?

The world grapples with Métissage- Mixture- Hybridity. (as captured by top stories on Google News tonight)

Delta Flight 166 JFK-ACC

Today has been a mess on Delta Flight 166 from JFK to Accra, Ghana

(I'm writing down the sequence of events before I forget).

The flight was supposed to leave JFK Thursday July 23 at 5:30 pm, but once we were on board, they found a fault with the plane (collision detection system).

So, we off loaded and waited for a new plane scheduled to depart at 8:30 pm. By the time the plane came, the crew and pilots were close to the end of their shifts.

The airline started to hand out food vouchers, but stopped around 9 pm, telling us we were to board soon and would be fed on the flight.

We got on the plane anyways, and they took us from JFK to Atlanta around 10:30 pm. We were delayed as they took fuel off the plane, since we would be too heavy to land there.

On board, we were fed one brown roll with butter, laid over with three slices of egg and slices of cucumber. I did not receive a drink, but may have slept through a beverage service.

We got to Atlanta at 1:30 am to pick up a new crew. PEOPLE WERE STARVING! There was a man with an oxygen who needed new oxygen. Several small babies.

Needless to say, by 4:00 am, we were still on the plane, sitting on the tarmac, with no news.

Several rumors: the main runway was closed, so they were offloading cargo to lower the weight to use a short runway. the new crew had never gone to ghana and were freaked out.

People started walking around asking for info. Up to this point, everyone was very, very calm. Unnervingly calm.

They brought police, who said we were agitating, and the crew did not feel safe.

So now, they've canceled the flight. We are at a hotel in Atlanta, hoping to fly on a new plane today at 2 pm.

The funny thing is that Delta has never flown direct between Atlanta and Accra, and the pilots were trying to figure out a new flight plan. We will if all goes well get to Accra in the dead of night.

The Mosque in Morgantown

The Mosque in Morgantown is a great new film that premieres on PBS tonight (10 pm, but check local schedules). The film tells the story of Asra Nomani, a Washington Post journalist, who was friends with Daniel Pearl, and with him the day of his capture in Pakistan. Worried about the spread of extremism, she tries to change gender norms at the mosque her father founded in Morgantown, West Virginia. It is a compelling film about social change, religion, and community in multicultural America.

For me, the film really resonates with my own experience growing up in rural Pennsylvania in the thick of religious and cultural integration at a university campus. Immigrants from Russia, Ghana, El Salvador, all circulated in a primarily German church, bringing their own experiences and values. Our church was strangely a haven of relative progressiveness, compared to parochial university administrators glibly calling for diversity and bumbling through attracting 'minorities' to campus. But, I did find myself at youth groups of friends, or other settings where the hell-speak, and 'women must submit' curdled my blood.

Thanks to my brother, I had an opportunity to see it at a pre-screening event last weekend with the director and highly recommend you check it out. Director Brittany Huckabee has set up a comprehensive website for the film, and expressed interest in coming to show it at campuses, and religious and community centers in the Fall. If you'd like to sponsor a screening, please contact her directly.

I was interested to hear at the screening that the director grew up in a conservative christian community in Colorado and was attracted to Nomani's struggle given her own religious experiences. Even though the film is fully about Islam, it has the signposts that will make sense to all people of faith, as well as to those who make their way around God.

On Collars

Blue Collars, White Collars.

No Collars?

A friend posts a photo of her infant nephew online in a little shirt with a 'popped' collar. He looks adorable. It reminds me of the Ivy League Days, and the standing collar as sign of prep school confidence. Today, my husband is wearing a tunic shirt without a collar , the Nehru style I associate with the vague tones of Marxism and Intellectualism that swirled in the background of my growing up experience. The first suit I had sewn for myself in Accra, was a modified gray, pinstripe political suit-- a gesture to the Nkrumah-era political suits with mandarin collars, just the stand, no full collar. (Not sure if the jacket on Osagyafo, above, is collared or not...)

A recent Vogue article champions the new basics which include, I notice, three blouses with collars, 2 suit jackets with lapels, a parka with sleeve details and tweed collar. Also, a tuxedo vest.

When I was last in San Francisco trying to buy a suit jacket in an hour, I had trouble finding one with lapels, and ended up with two sweater jackets w/ shawl collars.

All of this is to say, yes, the collar is classed, but have I been bred to shun collars?

Further musings: I have been thinking recently about how Mennonite clothing styles influenced my early perceptions of appropriate attire, alongside the dashikis, boubous, and political suits. For women, anyway, the modest, hand-fashioned aprons and traditional dresses were collarless. The pious look of the priest.

[Note, perhaps my father was drawn to a German church in rural Pennsylvania due to its musical similarity to the German/Swiss Protestantism of rural Akwapim, pictured above?]

Towards a Ghanaian-Menno eclecticism.

Photos (Africa Report 1966, Missionaries in Aburi c. 1905 Basel Mission photo Archives)