National Radio Project

MAKING CONTACT

Transcript #34-08 Black and African
August 20, 2008

Program description, guest contact information and audio files at http://www.radioproject.org/archive/2008/3408.html

SEGMENT ONE

Narrator:This week on Making Contact…

Mouton AKRAN: Throughout my schooling years, until probably, say middle school, yeah, I didn’t have much of a good experience with African American people.

Narrator:Mouton Akran is a Nigerian immigrant growing up in Oakland, California.

Mouton: I would be asked, like, on a regular basis where my tail was, or, um, did I swim here? … And it wasn’t really, it wasn’t really the other kids of color, you know, like the Asian kids, or the Latino kids, it was mostly the African American kids. And I’m like what’s going on here? I mean, aren’t we the same skin tone? Aren’t we kind of from the same place?

Narrator:On this edition, we explore the tensions between African immigrants and black Americans through the eyes of one local high school student.

I’m Tena Rubio and this is Making Contact, a program connecting people, vital ideas, and important information.

SEGMENT TWO:

Narrator:African immigrants are the fastest growing segment of the black population in the U.S.

But the cultural boundaries between black Americans and African immigrants are often hard to break down.

In a special collaboration between National Radio Project and the U-C Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, student producer Amy Jeffries introduces us to Mouton Akran.

PART ONE 12:16

(music in: Fela Kuti, “No Agreement”)

Mouton: Ok. My name is Mouton Akran. I’m currently a senior at Oakland Technical High School now, and, uh, looking forward to graduation.

(hallway sound up)

CLASSMATE 1: Classmate: Mouton!

Mouton: Oh, what’s up man. (hands slap)

(hallway sound under)

Narrator: Mouton Akran is among the more than half a million African immigrants who have arrived in the U.S. since 1990. That’s more than were brought over from the continent during the slave trade.

(music out)

Mouton: I, uh, was born in Nigeria. I moved here in 1997 at the age of 6.

And um, my father is King of Badagry. And, uh, my title is, uh, of course prince.

(classroom sound in)

(classroom sound under)

Narrator: In the San Francisco Bay Area where Prince Mouton lives, about one in of 10 blacks identify themselves as sub-Saharan African. At Oakland Tech, a predominantly black high school in a predominantly black city, Mouton is among a noticeable handful of African students.

(classroom sound up)

<strong>Classmate 2</strong>: This class is out of control. Somebody stop this class.

(classroom sound under)

Narrator: It’s sixth period and Mouton is hunched over his algebra book. He’s taking this class for the second time, and he’s got to pass it to graduate.

The underclassmen in the class couldn’t care less. Instead of calculating the value of “x”, they trade gossip and make fun of the teacher’s heavy Middle Eastern accent. When I step out of the room, Mouton switches on my recorder so he can show me what he has to tune out in order to get his work done.

(classroom sound up)

<strong>Classmate 2</strong>: Africa man don’t touch it!

Classmate 3: He turned it on. He’s recording everything you saying.

(classroom sound under)

Narrator: Did you hear that? Mouton’s classmate called him “Africa Man”, and it wasn’t a compliment.

Mouton says in high school much of the teasing has subsided, but when he first started going to school here it was really tough.

Mouton: I would be asked, like, on a regular basis where my tail was, or, um, did I swim here? Just like really painful jokes, like I’m so dark that if it was at night nobody would be able to see me. It like really hurt. Like, that was like really like the end of the world.

(classroom sound out)

And it wasn’t really, it wasn’t really the other kids of color, you know, like the Asian kids, or the Latino kids, it was mostly the African American kids. And I’m like what’s going on here? I mean, aren’t we the same skin tone? Aren’t we kind of from the same place? It seemed kind of awkward because we pretty much look alike, you know, except for the fact that I’m from another country and you were born here.

(music in: Hamid Baroudi “Trance Dance”)

Mouton: Throughout my schooling years, until probably, say middle school, yeah, I didn’t have much of a good experience with African American people.

(music up)

(music under)

Narrator: African immigrants like Mouton often complain of feeling alienated from the black community. Gerald Lenoir, an advocate for solidarity between African immigrants and black Americans, says black Americans feel rejected too.

Lenoir: If I’m in a group of African Americans I’ve, I mean, many times I’ve heard people remark about how, uh, how uppity Africans are and how they’d rather relate to white people than to black people. That’s seen as a rejection by African Americans often times.

(music out)

Narrator: Indeed it was white people that Mouton was looking forward to hanging out with when he came to the U.S. That’s because back in Nigeria, which was colonized by the British, white people are still revered for having wealth and power in the world.

Mouton: When, uh, Caucasian people would come to Nigeria they would be like really prominent businessmen. When you, like, see these people you perceive them to be like on the top of the world.

Narrator: Of course, on top of the world is exactly where Mouton wants to end up.

Mouton: When I grow up, essentially when I turn 18, which is like next year, essentially, I wanna do a lot of things. Um, I’m shooting to go to school for graphic design and marketing. I really, I really see myself as an entrepreneur, cuz I like, I can’t see myself working a desk job for like 31 years, and, you know.

Narrator: Mouton’s dreams of going to college and getting a good job are not unusual, really. Many of Mouton’s black American classmates have plans for college and professional careers too.

(hallway sound in)

Classmate 4: I wanna go into a four-year college and major in either business or music, and play football.

Classmate 5: I’m takin my diploma to the hood. Nah, I’m joking, I’m joking, I’m joking. Ima go to a two-year college and see about transferring if I like it.

Classmate 6: I’m gonna make it in two years. I don’t know what college - it’s gonna be a good one.

(hallway sound out)

Narrator: But if Mouton is looking for a role model, he’s more likely – nearly twice as likely – to find an African immigrant than a black American with a college degree. And African immigrants tend to have better paying jobs too. On average they make 10 percent more a year – about 17-hundred dollars more, than their black American counterparts.

Nwokeji: I am Ugo Nwokeji. I’m a professor in the department of African American Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. I’m a historian by training and I’m a Nigerian.

African Americans not being well-represented in the social class that most Africans aspire to be in, you know, and Africans, naturally, would like to understand why this is the case. But, but instead of doing an analysis they already have an explanation out there and they just imbibe.

Narrator: Gerald Lenoir says African immigrants often have a negative view of black Americans before they even arrive in the U.S.

Lenoir: Black immigrants come to this country with stereotypes of African Americans – they’re lazy, they don’t want to work, they’ve been here 400 years and can’t make it in society, I come and I can make it so why can’t they? – those types of attitudes.

Mouton: One thing that I see that I really have come to dislike, but, I mean, maybe, maybe it’s just me, and I don’t really blame African American people for it, you know, but there is no way that you should ever be satisfied, you know, living off of social security money.

And especially, you know, living in the country that you do live in, there are people that would die to be in your position. You’re an American citizen, you know. You can make things for yourself.

You know, you cannot just sit on your butt all day in some broke-down shack and and wait for a check to come in, you know. I don’t I don’t I don’t limit it to just African Americans, but I don’t really see Asian people just sitting in the house waiting for $600 a month.

Narrator: Mouton wants to distinguish himself from his black American peers.

He’ll speak the popular slang with his classmates only because he thinks he has to.

(hallway sound in)

Mouton: Most of the time if somebody’s gonna say I am going to do something, it’s ‘Ima,’ like, ‘Ima do this’. If you, um, go to Oakland tech and you speak like you’re from like Belair, you not really just gonna just slide through. And if you come in and you speak Queen’s English, you know, with people who don’t really understand Queen’s English you know, you’re gonna be kind of out of the loop.

(hallway sound up)

Mouton: Did you guys lose the game yesterday too?

Classmate 7: Yeah they did.

(hallway sound under)

Mouton: Before I really started hanging out with, uh, you know, talking to people, like having conversations at school and just kickin’ it and hanging out with people, I spoke like proper English – straight. So, like, I’ve had to like catch up in slang a lot, and I still think I’m behind in slang right now.

Narrator: But Mouton is proud of his command of proper English.

Mouton: Definitely young people, especially young people, you have to be able to speak proper English, because there is no way that you can make it in a professional setting, you know, speaking like you on the block. It’s just not gonna work out. You can’t go to your boss and be like, ‘Yo! Wassup!’.

Narrator: Mouton tries to look professional too. Almost every other black boy in Mouton’s high school wears baggy jeans, down low to show off the ostentatious embroidery on their oversized back pockets. Mouton has his own pair of stylish baggy jeans. But he wears them up to his waist. And often, instead of wearing jeans to school, he dresses up.

Mouton: Today I wore a brown velvet jacket and a brown button up shirt, tan Mark Ecco pants and, uh, Steve Madden wingtips.

(music in: Common “The Light”)

(music holds)

(music under)

Mouton: I guess it’s a issue of presentation. Because, you know, if you see somebody who’s dressed up like they work in City Hall, you’re most likely gonna pay more mind to what he or she has to say than what somebody that’s dressed like a drug dealer –the person that’s you know, dressed with baggy jeans and is sagging.

(music up)

(music out)

Queen Aakran: My name is Queen Rhoda Abimbola Akran. That’s my last born, Prince Mouton Akran.

Narrator: Mouton’s mother also wants to be sure that her son is presenting himself as a proper gentleman.

Queen: I, I watch Mouton closely uh, to stay away from those languages, and so many other things that I see that are wrong.

Narrator: Many of the things she sees as wrong are the cornerstones of black American culture and style.

Queen: When you sag your pant? You know, when they sag their pant?

Mouton: Some black guy wearing his pants below his buttocks – yeah, that right there, that’s basically what sagging is.

Queen: That I’m warning him against. Why should he be sagging pant? I have never seen a white person sag their pant. A white, responsible white man, you see his pant up, up to his navel, with his suspender holding it from dropping. So where on earth do they, you know, they find the idea of sagging, putting your pant down. It’s a very very immoral act, very immoral. So I don’t let him.

In Nigeria we are colonized by the British If you’re a man you put your tie. You dress like a gentleman. And American here, I see them, I see how they dress. I don’t know what to to call those people. They are putting themselves down by dressing that way. Sagging your pant, uhn.

Mouton: Now I don’t look like every other kid that goes to my school. I don’t look like any other kid that you see walking down the street.

It’s a good thing to stand out I think because if there was a robbery was just committed and, uh, it’s in a predominantly black neighborhood where everybody wears baggy jeans, white tees, blue jeans and a pair of Nikes, you know, the primary suspect is gonna be somebody that’s wearing that same clothing. It really, it really does set a tone for for a person to be stereotyped and looked at a certain way.

(music in: OlaDELe, “Still African”)

SEGMENT 3

(music holds during id break)

STATION BREAK :30

SEGMENT 3

Music and M.C. I.D. Break (00:30 – 1:00 ONLY)

Coming Up next….

Darrick: Definitely, in this situation we look the damn same, so it really shouldn’t be that much of a stretch to look at a cat and be like, you African , I’m African American, we must have a similar history, and we will have a similar experience in this nation, like regardless.

The cop is gonna pull us both over. The cop is gonna ask us the same question the same way.

You're listening to “Making Contact,” a production of the National Radio Project. If you’d like more information or for C-D copies of this program, please call 800-529-5736. You can also download programs or get our podcast at radioproject-dot-org.

We now return to “Black and African” produced by U-C Berkeley Journalism Graduate Student, Amy Jeffries.

FADE MUSIC HERE

SEGMENT 4

PART TWO 14:14

(music fades)

Narrator: In Nigeria, Queen Akran lived the life of royalty. She and her family did not have much personal wealth, but their needs were well met by the community that her husband, the King of Badagry, still serves. But there’s no cash being sent from Nigeria to support the Queen here. And even if her family had money to send, those contributions would be nullified by the unfavorable exchange rate from naira to dollars. When she brought her son to the U.S. for medical reasons, Queen Akran had to give up her relatively pampered life.

Queen: Things are very tough here. I came from a wealthy environment. I have people that takes care of me, I don’t work, I’m a leader of women, a mother of the whole city. That’s that’s the role I was playing.

You compare that one to being a pauper. To be slugging it out, running around, running after the bus to get to wherever I want to go.

Narrator: Here Queen Akran is among the working poor.

(entering the shop sound in)

(sewing shop sound in)

Narrator: When she hasn’t been called to work a shift as a nurse’s aide, she keeps busy in her clothing shop in downtown Oakland, trying to make ends meet. The walls of the shop are covered with school uniforms and African-style gowns that she’s created. The shelves are overwhelmed with beaded necklaces and head wraps. The floor is piled high with bolts of cloth ready to be cut and sewn.

(sewing shop sound up)

(street sound in)

Narrator: The Queen’s shop sits in the middle of a block of black-owned businesses. There’s a barbershop across the street, and a bail bondsman next door.

The police department identifies the neighborhood as one of Oakland’s most troublesome beats. And the city is already ranked as one of the most dangerous in the country.

(street sound up)

SHOP OWNER: Hello.

Queen: Huh.

(street sound under)

Narrator: Queen Akran greets the other shop owners as she passes them on the street the street, but she doesn’t feel safe in this neighborhood. She barricades the door when she and Mouton are in the shop after dark.

And she says she feels lucky her son has stayed out of trouble.

(street sound out)

Queen: He will be in the house. If I go out, he will be in the house until I come back. He will never open this door to nobody.

We have lived in a very dangerous and very deadly area before, where they’re selling cocaine, where they’re shooting themselves once in every week, uhuh, and my son has never gone down there to join them, never.

He doesn’t go with any gang. No student here in America that doesn’t belong to one gang or the other. My son doesn’t belong to any gang, not at t’all.

(music in: Keak da Sneak, “Welcome to Oakland”)

(music holds, then under)

Narrator: Despite the challenges of poverty and inner city distractions, Queen Akran wants her son to take advantage of the opportunities the U.S. offers – to take his education to the highest level and get a job in a lucrative field.

(music out)

Queen: And I believe in one day I am going back to Nigeria, show my son’s hand to the people of Nigeria, he has, the egg, the embryo has become a whole chicken (she laughs). The egg has hatched into a whole chicken, mmmm.

(drum solo in)

Narrator: Mouton has other ideas.

MUSIC TEACHER: Maybe you should get some protective goggles, there’ll be flying wood.

(drum solo up)

(drum solo under)

Narrator: That’s Mouton playing a solo during his lunch hour at school.

(drum solo up)

(drum solo under)

Narrator: His mother doesn’t want to hear it, but Mouton’s real passion isn’t business, it’s music.

Mouton: I do want to produce music, and then I want to as a career goal for myself, um, freelance drummer, I want to record an album and/or go on tour with a major recording label artist.

(drum solo up)

(drum solo under)

Queen: Now we are fighting. He can’t choose music. You you can be a doctor, you can be a lawyer you can be an engineer. What do you mean music? That is falling onto my deaf ears because I want him to do something that’s first before music.

(drum solo out)

Queen: I told my son. You better get away from music now and go into school. Leave the music now. Face the studies now. The requirements to go to the university, I want him to be able to come out in a flying color, he doesn’t have to go to any other pre, pre-college or preliminary thing, he will just go straight away into the university.

Narrator: But Mouton has a C- average. He hasn’t applied to any four-year colleges yet. And instead of focusing on his academics, Mouton often stays up late, working on music on his computer.

those late nights are affecting his performance in the classroom too. He falls asleep in class a lot, and sometimes he doesn’t make it to his morning classes at all.

Darrick Smith is one of Mouton’s teachers.

Darrick: His, his attendance is not very good and when he is there he has issues staying awake. That’s just not good. Uh, and more so than any other student. No one has the combination of like cutting and actually falling asleep in class. Mouton is very unique.

(music in: Mac Dre, “Dreganomics”)

(music under)

Narrator: Mid way through his senior year Mouton was in danger of failing three of his classes. If he doesn’t pass those classes, he won’t get his diploma.

Darrick: Yeah, no, it’s a real possibility. I mean, if he’s sleeping and not showing up. You know, there’s an amazing ability that we have to screw ourselves over in the last two semesters of high school.

I focus on my, on my black males as far as their behavior, their body language, um, their participation in class and so when he’s falling asleep right in front of me I’m like, ‘Dude, you just gotta step it up’.

You can blame the system, but I’m telling you right now the system is designed for you to fail, so we know that from jump, so step it up.

That requires at the ground level students studying when they don’t want to study coming to school when they don’t want to go to school, and staying awake when they don’t feel like it.

Narrator: Smith knows what Mouton is up against from personal experience. Smith grew up in Oakland too. And he identifies with Mouton, not as a Nigerian or an African immigrant, but as a young black male.

Darrick: I’m a black male myself, as you know, but you can’t really tell on audio, well maybe you can, Ebonics and things.

If you’re a young black or a young African male you’re gonna have some stuff stacked up against you.

We’re a low-income city, we’re a high minority city in a country that targets minorities for poverty and other things. So when I say step it up I’m saying it like it’s not your fault, I’m saying step it up, like, it’s not your fault but it is your responsibility.

It is a fight against an oppressive structure. It is a resistance, uh, struggle.

Narrator: Smith believes that common experience of oppression and discrimination should be used to bring solidarity among black people, regardless of nationality or heritage.

Darrick: Definitely, in this situation we look the damn same, so it really shouldn’t be that much of a stretch to look at a cat and be like, you African , I’m African American, we must have a similar history, and we will have a similar experience in this nation, like regardless.

The cop is gonna pull us both over. The cop is gonna ask us the same question the same way.

And if we have no real established beef then perhaps we should be linked together and doing work together because there’s obviously things that I believe people that weren’t raised here can bring to communities that have been raised here.

(music out)

Narrator: Mouton may try to distinguish himself from his black American peers by dressing up or speaking proper English, but he knows that he can not totally escape the racial hierarchy that persists in this country.

Mouton: People don’t see me as a Nigerian person, they see me as a black person, you know.

There’s a lot of things that you hear growing up as a black person. And I know every black person can relate to me when I say this, you know, you hear a lot of things, you hear a lot of people telling you what you can and what you can’t do just because of your skin tone.

Narrator: Mouton has come to appreciate the achievements of black Americans in their struggles for civil rights and emancipation from slavery. And in Darrick Smith’s class, he’s come to identify with some of that history as his own.

Mouton: My favorite class in school is, uh, TryUMF. And uh, that class is instructed by Darrick Smith.

(classroom sound in)

Mouton: Hi Darrick.

Darrick: Hey.

Mouton: This is what we call TryUMF. It means “trying to uplift my folks”, but it’s listed as humanities.

(classroom sound under)

Mouton: We learn a lot of things in that class. It teaches about social movements and social injustice.

(classroom sound up: Darrick delivers a lecture)

Smith: Why many social movements in America, well, Latin America, Africa as well, focus on education, food programs – yes?

Class: Yes.

Smith: Is because even in the face of death, despair, and poverty, a community can respond to those needs and lessen the atmosphere of desperation.

Our kids aren’t eating before school? So we will start a free breakfast program. Does that make sense?

Class: Yes.

Smith: While we’re working on the death, despair and poverty…

(classroom sound under)

Mouton: We wouldn’t have free breakfasts in schools if the Black Panthers didn’t start their free breakfast program.

You don’t learn none of the things that you learn in that one class in all of your classes combined together. I mean, nobody is really gonna teach you about the Black Panthers. I mean no, in none of my history classes have I learned that there were at least 20 major slave revolts that involved 20 or more people in ‘em.

It’s important to learn about these things because, one, you know, that’s something that every black person, or every person period, should know.

As a black person, you’ve gotta know what your people have done. You can’t just sit there and think, ‘Oh, white people’. You’ve gotta know that black people have contributed to this country and they have fought.

It’s really deep. It’s really deep.

(classroom sound up: bell)

Smith: … Ok, so we’ll cover the rest on Monday. Are you learning anything?

Class: Yes.

(classroom sound out)

(sewing shop sound in)

(sewing shop under)

Narrator: Mouton’s mom sews a bolt of brightly patterned cloth into an African blouse and skirt she’ll wear later to a Nigerian birthday party. For a while she tolerates her son’s hip-hop in the tiny shop.

Queen: This is what I reckon with.

Narrator: But it’s Fela Kuti’s interpretations of Nigerian parables that she sings along to.

Queen: It’s a music that everybody knows back home in Nigeria.

Narrator: The music reminds her of the home she can’t wait to get back to.

Queen: I’m not supposed to be here. I have not been to Nigeria – this is the eleventh year. I was here in May 29, 1997.

(sewing shop sound out)

(music in: Fela Kuti “Odoo”)

Queen: My senior brother, his royal majesty, the king… he has just been crowned. I have two grandchildren, two grandchildren by my daughter, I have never set my eyes on them. There are so many things I’m missing, but I have no choice, I have to be here, until certain, certain time that I will be able to go to Nigeria.

(music out)

Narrator: She hopes that will be soon, once Mouton gets past his first two years of college.

But Mouton is not so sure where his home will be.

After all these years away, Mouton can’t even describe where his father’s Nigerian kingdom is without consulting a map.

And he’s no longer sure which side of the world he’s supposed to be on.

Mouton: Uh, I’m not planning to live full-time here or Nigeria. Like, I kinda want to be back and forth. I’ve been away for so long I’m not really sure what to expect. Yeah, it just makes it that much more special going back, because I haven’t been home in such a long time.

(music in: Junior Senior, “Move Your Feet”)

(music fades to end)

That’s it for this edition of Making Contact…

 This show has been a special collaboration between National Radio Project and the U-C Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Thanks to student producer, Amy Jeffries, who wrote and edited this show under the guidance of independent media producer and U-C Berkeley J-school lecturer, Claire Schoen.

Special thanks to Edwin Okong’o, and Lydia Chavez for editing assistance, to Darrick Smith, The Black Alliance for Just Immigration, and Oakland Technical High School, and to Dan Turner, Ron Rucker and the “Monday Morning Breakfast Crew.”

For a C-D copy of this program, call the National Radio Project at 800-529-5736 or you can get our podcast at radioproject.org.

Lisa Rudman is our executive director, Kahnh Pham, Associate Director, Andrew Stelzer, Producer, Puck Lo, associate producer, Elena Botkin-Levy, and Aubrey Green interns…

And I’m Tena Rubio… thanks for listening to Making Contact.