I was at the mall a few
days ago and I saw a white family; a man, his wife and son. This kid was cute
and big enough to even carry a baby brother or sister, if he had any. However,
his parents apparently thought that he was pram-worthy so he sat comfortably as
the Nigerian housegirl pushed and pulled him around the entire mall. That’s not
the point. The point is that the said housegirl looked scrawny and scruffy and
of course very sad as she did her job. Well, that’s not exactly the point
again; it was apparent that the girl was not well taken care of, as if the
racial contrast and class difference were not obvious enough. I was mad. I
mean, what was that all about? My friend
couldn’t understand why I was so irked. Maybe it’s the fact that lately, there’s
been so much tension surrounding white dominance and the devaluation of black
lives to them. Maybe it’s because I looked at the white woman and saw Snow
White’s stepmother. I’m sure the parents of the poor girl gave her up
enthusiastically, thinking that having their daughter work for an Oyibo man
would bring them some fortune. Just maybe…Maybe she’d be looking healthier if
she stayed back in the village eating fresh fruits from trees and drinking
spring water just as it flows from the belly of rocks. Amidst my complaints, my
friend asked me whether I had not seen Nigerian women whose house helps looked
just as bad. I knew she was right but this scenario seemed much worse to me at
that moment. Somewhere in my head, I blamed black people for treating
themselves with so much disdain that these people thought it was okay to treat
them in the same way that they treat their brothers. I was so mad because it
was so obvious that the poor black girl meant absolutely nothing to them.
Again, I blamed us for saying to these people committing so much crime against
ourselves that justice is now defined as “crimes against us”.
Today is not for
talking about how our skin color makes us seem like better slaves than CEOs. Or
how they think we are better off with no air in our lungs than walking on the
streets our ancestors worked on with backs bleeding from the whips of white
Lords. Today is not for that. We will today talk about mothers who see beings
less than human in the faces of other people’s children. We will talk about a
practice that is perhaps even more common in the African society than in the western
societies.
First of all, I do not
want to see your house help and know that that is exactly what she is, except
of course she’s putting on a well-tailored uniform with an apron tied to her
waist. I do not want to see your kids wearing smart clothes while the fruit of
another’s womb is clad in rags as she caters to your munchkins. I do not want
to see your children having skins as smooth and glossy as magazine covers while
another’s walks around your house with bruises and cuts from your belt or
shoes. No, I do not want to look at you and see Snow White’s stepmother because
you know what? You are worse than her simply because you are a real life monster
human being and she’s not.
I do not what to
understand why you would knowingly batter another in every way that you can
just to highlight the already present truth that he/she can never mean as much
as your kids (who by the way are spoilt) to you. Why would you see the poor and
uneducated as a threat to you and your oh-so-royal family when you do not give
them the tiniest opportunity to get to where you were ages ago? Why do you feel
the need to see another tremble and shudder before you? Are you Karashika? Oh!!
And why have you forgotten that what goes around comes back around? Like why
will you treat an orphan with so much undeserving hate, forgetting that if you
and your husband get hit by a truck while doing your love thing on the streets,
the baby in the pram would have the same cross to carry as that battered maid
pushing the stroller? What point are you trying to make?
In civilized countries,
the average person does not batter their maid or nanny with khoi khoi shoes or with
the buckle of their husbands’ belt. They do not go around buttering the private
parts of their house helps with pepper because the kids did not eat at 7pm,
after the poor housegirl might have begged them for 2 hours while taking the
insults being hurled at her by your pretty little darlings. It’s a shame that
among ourselves, we create terror for reasons more subtle than skin color. Even
that is not enough to treat another like a creature from hell else everything
we are hearing today would be justified.
There is no reason…none
at all…that makes okay to treat a human being as anything other than that.
There is no justification for maltreating your domestic workers just because it
feel right to you. Slave trade was abolished for a reason. I am not saying you
should take all the crap that these workers bring with them, especially in the
African society, I’m saying that you should be civilized while dealing with
them. If you’re going going to spank a child for doing wrong, do it as though
he/she were your own. Don’t buy your dog KFC chicken while your domestic help
feeds on your children’s leftovers. For the record, I knew a man like that. And
please, don’t ask your housegirl who weighs less than 4 boxes of cereal to cart
around a child who weighs more than a sack of rice and is old enough to wash
his socks. He’s not crippled for a reason.
Mothers must learn to
do these things right or else their daughters will learn from them and a
vicious cycle would be triggered. Charity they say, begins at home. If we are
going to fight for ourselves at the global level, we must learn to defend and
protect ourselves at home. There is much more beauty in a world filled with kindness
and good deeds that reeking of rancor. I know we all want to live fairytales
but I think it’ll be better to emulate the sweet-natured princesses or the
gracious fairy-godmothers rather than the Ursulas and Snow White’s stepmothers.
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I really want to hear what you guys have to say about this one. Kindly drop your comments below and thanks for stopping by. Cheers!
