A person recently asked me
about my experience in Galicia as a person of color. So, I thought it’d be a good idea to actually
address my experience in Galicia as a person of color.
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| A picture of me being blinded by the sun. |
First off, I believe everyone
is a person of color. We all played with
crayons as children and there was always, white, black, yellow, red, blue,
orange, and green in the box. In my
case, my dad is Black and my mother is Haliwa-Saponi, so I’m high-yellow or
“café con leche” in Spain.
Before I came to Galicia, my
mom joked and told me not to go because there weren’t any Black folks there!
However, I would urge all folks who are “of color” to not be afraid. If you let your skin color hold you back,
you’ll never get anywhere in life. If
Crayola thought your “color” was good enough to go in a crayon box, it’s damn
sure good enough for you to travel with that same “color”.
1 .) Mistaken Identity
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| The local Saturday market |
Due to these influences, I’ve
been mistaken for Senegalese, a Cuban, and seldom a Moroccan. From my general experience, no one looks at
me and assumes that I speak English.
Once people hear me speak, then they find out that I am American or
British.
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| Another photo of the local Saturday market |
I do not believe that my
other companions with bright blonde hair and blue eyes find themselves in the
same situation as me. If folks in my
town see someone with blonde hair and blue eyes, the natural assumption is that
they are American. I believe this
peculiarity is due to various factors but I can’t shake the feeling that the
general lack of non-White folks going abroad is a contributing factor. Many times it seems to me as if folks forget
that the United States is a country composed of many colors and that we’re not
all fair-skinned.
2.) Veña negriño o Veña
negriña o dígolles Goodbye Nigga!
Spanish folks have inherited
a lot of English words into their language, like: “feeling”, “wi-fi”, “sorry”,
“okay”, “gay”, or “sexy” to name a few.
A word that shocked me to hear here was “nigga”. This is a word that makes me uncomfortable to
say and I find myself at a lost as to whether I should embrace the word or shun
it as many others. I associate the word
with its slavery meaning and the destruction and unification it has brought to
African-Americans since. The word
“nigga” has entered Spanish slang through music but many folks have no idea of
its original meaning and think it is just a term for friendship between two
people. It entered the language in much
the same way as “gay” has entered their language without it’s original meaning
of “happy”. I have heard the word being
used a few times in a few of my classes.
Whenever this has happened, I took a few moments to explain the original
significance of the word, or corrected the students to use the term “Black
man”. Most of the students are alarmed at the original meaning because they
only thought the word had a friendly meaning.
The word for black in Spanish
is “negro”. On occasion, I’ve been
referred to as “el profesor negro” when parents are unsure of what my name
is. As a warning to Black folks coming
to Spain, do not take offense when people use the word like that. It at first made me a bit uncomfortable because
I kept thinking about the word “negro” in English and it’s outdated usage.
3.) Fucking Paparazzi
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| The Spanish Atticus Finch and I |
I have encountered a few
folks in Spain that wanted to take a picture with me. Although none of the groups mentioned
outright it was because I was Black, it just seemed very obvious. On both occasions, I was in a crowded location,
only Black guy, and the groups approached me asking to take a picture with
me. On one of these occasions, one of my
friends flipped out on the group of guys saying they only wanted my picture
because I was Black. After my friend
accused them, the men started claiming a bogus story about wanting to take a
picture with me because I pee with a serious look on my face before they
finally gave up on wanting to take my picture.
This happened to me in Scotland as well, but the man kindly explained to
me that I looked like Cleveland Brown from the Cleveland Show. You can choose to permit folks to take a
picture with you or deny it. It’s a
strange thing to me, but I had to realize that I am just as much a part of
these peoples experience and history as they are a part of mine. On one hand I can understand why, but on
another hand it makes me feel as if I am an exotic animal.
4.) Stereotypes
I have encountered a lot of
stereotypes here. The first stereotype
that caught me off guard is the number of folks who subscribe to the
“Black-men-are-as-hung-as-horses” belief.
A lot of people here believe that rumor and I believe I’ve met more
people in Spain believing in that than Americans. I’m not going to discuss the accuracy of the
statement but it is shocking to hear so many people talk about it when they
meet you.
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| They think a Black guy's penis is as big and black as this fish. |
People think you can sing. I
know someone who always asks me to show him my “Black voice” because all Black
people can sing. When I try to reason
with him and say that I can’t carry a note, he doesn’t believe me.
Some people may want you to
speak like a cliché Black person. This
happened to me about a month and a half ago. I was talking to a woman about
something and she kept asking me “how would YOU say it?” implying that she
wanted me to say it in a cliché “Black” way.
I found it rather infuriating; because she was under the blanket
assumption that I spoke like every Black cliché she had ever met.
5.) Racism
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| Only reach down if you plan on helping your neighbor up. |
I have not experienced
blanket racism here. I haven’t heard
people using the expression “negro de mierda” like Argentines are notorious
for. I’ve yet to see a Spaniard that
just hates me because of my skin color.
On the opposite hand, I feel as if I’ve experienced more racism within
the United States than I have in Spain.
However, I can see a lot of the same racist problems we have in the
United States being carried out in Spain.
The only difference is that the skin color and nationality changes. In Spain, the people who are mistreated are
the Romanians or distastefully called “Gitanos”. In a later and separate post I will discuss
the racism that I see against Romanians here in Spain and how it compares to
the United States.
In general, many Spaniards
have been curious to hear about my experience in the United States as a Many folks have asked about whether or not
the United States is still as racist as it once was in the past. I always let them know that the racism is
still there but it has metamorphosed into another form of racism. This curiosity at first came off as a tad
racist to me because it seemed as if they were singling me out only because of
my skin color (more prejudice I believe).
But after a few months, I realized that these people were asking
questions out of curiosity because they wanted to take advantage of the fact
that I was not White to hear my take on things in the United States as a minority.
These are my experiences in
Galicia. Everyone’s experience is
different with respect to who they are physically, emotionally, mentally,
spiritually, sexually, jokingly, spanishly, englishly, lovingly, talkingly,
personally, kissingly, dancingly, churchly, angrily, happily, galicianly,
octopusly, rabbitly, manly, womanly, malely, femalely, zirly, riverly, oceanly,
ecologically, etc. I learned that if I
try to understand where folks are coming from, a lot of “racist things” are
just pure curiosity. So I would
encourage all folks coming to Spain to just take “questions” with a grain of
salt and respond politely.
