In my freshman year of
college, I took a course called “The Self and the Other.” It inspired my
eventual Sociology minor, as well as my love of museums and exploring other
cultures.
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| Image courtesy of Progressive Buddhism blog |
The more I’ve traveled,
the more I’ve encountered little reality checks: reminders that even in our
ever-shrinking world, we don’t share the same context, the same histories, the
same ideas about who we are.
Yesterday
I went to the State Museum of Egyptian Art. Mostly it was to see Munich’s
renowned collection. Partly, it was to see how Egyptian culture was framed from
a German point of view.
At
the ¾ mark I was ready to applaud the curators and translators for an educational
and even-handed presentation about most aspects of Egyptian life. Then I got to
the exhibit detailing Egypt’s relationship with neighboring
countries.
The first jolt was how divisively Egypt was portrayed. It was as if the country was its own continent, and "Africa" was a pesky border nation.
Speaking of pesky border nations, the
Nubians, described in other displays with a “curly hairstyle” and “fleshy lips
and a wide nose” may indeed have been looked down upon by the Egyptians, but
the aspersions about their illiteracy, their non-threatening inferiority, and
the statement that caricatures of them were not necessarily mean-spirited, were
not otherwise supported.
The
kicker was in the text on how Nubians appeared on Egyptian cosmetic and
ointment vessels as friendly, protective spirits. Then the next sentence: “Monkeys…also
took on this protective function.”
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| 1907 postcard. In the future, will a museum display say this couple's appearance was "exaggerated into the realm of caricature, not necessarily cynically or cruelly, but in more of a teasingly good-natured way" ?? |
I’m
understating the case to say this kind of parallelism is extraordinarily
sensitive. There is a long history worldwide of black Africans and their descendants assumed to be, referred
to as, and treated as if they were animals.
Apes in particular. Ugly. Devilish. Lustful. Sinful. Pestilent. The further you can push "the other" from your own ideals, the easier it is to subjugate them.
Blacks have been subjected to simian taunts, cartoon depictions, had bananas thrown at them--in December 2016 a West Virginia official called Michelle Obama “an
ape in heels” in a Facebook post!
A week ago, there was international uproar over an H&M ad with a black child wearing a
“coolest monkey in the jungle” sweatshirt. And while
I appreciate the spirit of the boy’s mother trying to soothe the furor, she was
wrong in how she handled it and what she said.
When we don’t acknowledge what
our broader history is, we don’t learn from its mistakes.
Of
course, my experience as a black American is not the same as the experiences of
a black German. The things that make me bristle might mean little to nothing
over here. Accepting that has to be part of my personal growth. But educating
folks about those different experiences in a nonconfrontational way also has to
be part of my personal growth.
Maybe
there are certain prejudices—certain instances
of “the other”—that inspire discomfort across the spectrum. Over
the next several weeks, I’m going to take a look at that idea.
I'll start with the history of colonialism and nationalism in Germany. Then move to a more localized scale, with my own experiences and anecdotes from others about the
struggles of modern diversity here in Germany.
