The bus ride home today was pretty exhilarating, I was sitting next to this middle aged lady on the bus and i noticed that every time any part of our bodies touched, she cleans herself and looks up at me with this weird look that freaks me out till today. I am from the very depth of West Africa, and i am new to the social attributes aligned with my skin color outside Africa as I have always live in a society where everybody looked like me, i mean i have always known about racial differences but i have been in Africa till now the people around me simply looked at me as a human Man and not a Black Man, We Africans don't even realize that we are black back home and that's so awesome. This lady continued to wipe her skin every time we touched till it started to bug me, it reminded me of the time an old man walked all the way to the back of the bus ignoring every other passenger young and old to tell to me to stand up so he could sit which was pretty weird, so I felt I had to do something this time. When we hit the next bump i rested my entire shoulder on her shoulder, my God was she furious, she jumped off at the next station or maybe it was her station but who cares.
Racism exists obviously but it is harder to identify here in Istanbul because of the social construct of the people, where i am from I'm not sure i know anyone who would burst a nerve if a white guy uses the word "nigger". My grandparents didn't tell me about slavery i found it in a book, i am positive that there are millions of Africans with similar stories, it's only fair that they tell us this stories because our generation is filled with descendants of those that escaped slavery because they sold Other Africans or were protected by those that sold other Africans into slavery " sorry Black America".
Living in a transcontinental city filled with different races and ethnicity like Istanbul, you'd think people won't be surprised when they see a black person on a bus. I am not going to disregard the tension i have noticed between some the Turks and Arabs i know, been part of conversations analyzing their difference down to things as interesting as how the Hijab is worn which was astonishing because it represents the same Faith. These are basic social tensions that i am referring to because of course there be some cultural and lingual differences too, but I am not so sure it compares to being Black though, in my opinion being Black entails different struggles, then when you are a Black African, "shit fam".
The complexity of the social construct in major cities around the world is stupendous, different ethnicity, different races, different culture, different political ideologies all breathing within these cities. So stupendous in fact that racism has to exists in one form or the other. Recently, i have been thinking about getting a hoodie with the tag "YABANCI" written in big letters on it, i understand that this is a popular phrase around here when searching for an apartment, which was really difficult for me because of i am a "YABANCI" which is Turkish for "foreigner". When i first moved here it took a while to find an apartment, i recollect having a conversation with a house owner on the phone where she said " I'm not sure i want to rent my house to you, I'm not sure you can take of the house " this was after she found out from her agent that i am African.
I think i need to make it firmly clear that i am not saying that the Turks are racist, but i don't fully believe they get the complexity of Racism and discrimination itself, since most Turks are only acquainted with just their culture, music, lifestyle, language. There is a Wristwatch joke i recently found out about from a friend, it sounds ridiculous but i can't dismiss it, my friend explained that a Turkish man walks up to a black man that probably don't speak Turkish, and tries to ask you for the time saying “SAAT KAC” and then starts laughing. people have similarly asked me for the time and i just check my phone and responded, now hearing it is a form of joke they made up for Africans is preposterous.
Moving around the city, there are photo-shopped banners and ads about hungry African children who need help and needs to be fed, depicting poverty in Africa everywhere, and that in particular hits a nerve every time i see and it is hard to miss. There would be a bunch of kids in the picture and a white man in the middle, some people even go as far as having the photoshoot here, hiring some very ignorant Africans to act like poor people for the camera. These pictures, videos, billboards, banners of poor African kids and these very Caucasian Turkish man or woman is a supposed to be for charity for kids in Africa but most of these Caucasian have never been to Africa, it sucks that your perspective of Africa is poverty, but we Africans know how we have all been stopped on the road by kids asking for money one held on to my legs on the Metro-bus sometime last year and wouldn’t let go. The issue with stereotyping is; it takes an understanding of a Part and applies it to the All. when one of my lecturers apologized to all the black students in my class before telling a derivative story of the "Water Melon Theory " it was weird for me because i don't enjoy water lemon but somehow she thought that would be offensive because we are black, the stereotype does not apply to everyone. Like her, i have had to watch most of the friends i have made since i moved here struggle with stereotyping, some even try to shake my hand weird hoping to replicate what they have seen in American Movies.
Another weird observation has been the manner at which the average Turk views a Black man, like he just stepped out of a scene in “Straight out of Compton”, “he smokes weeds”, “gets drunk”, “fucks women”, “swears incisively”, and generally have a low moral code, and sadly many of us try to play into this narrative, in an attempt to fit in or be accepted, trying to display the accepted depiction of the Cool Black man from the movies. But unfortunately, like every other society structure around the world, most of us actually come from a decent high discipline homes, and if there is anything that is true, most of these depictions of the Cool Black Man are considered a huge taboo in many African homes, and I can even go as far as to say that the average Turk home allows a lower moral codes than the average African home.
This is a slight insight into the view of the African identity in a mad city like Istanbul, if you are black you can probably relate if not totally, It is a city consumed by history engulfing the daily activities of everyone within, Arts, Paintings, graffiti, Museums, bridges, beaches, Ancient Structures, beautiful people, it is an exciting place to be, learning the language might be strenuous but you'd still manage to talk to people even if you only have to stick to the basics, short conversations with the locals, mostly at stores with cashiers, asking for directions from strangers, fun meaningless discussions with your classmates, these are the little things that really keeps this city alive in your heart. Concluding this piece, it has been an amazing experience so far, rush of the cold in the winter, the sun and beaches in the summer, the fluctuating sense of fashion, lifestyle and the people Istanbul, it’s an adventure.
Adetunji Adelola
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