1)

2)
Wikipedia:

African immigrants to the U.S. are among the most educated groups in the United States. Some 48.9 percent of all African immigrants hold a college diploma. This is more than double the rate of native-born white Americans, and nearly four times the rate of native-born African Americans.[13]
In 1997, 19.4 percent of all adult African immigrants in the United States held a graduate degree, compared to 8.1 percent of adult white Americans and 3.8 percent of adult black Americans in the United States, respectively. [14]
Of the African-born population in the United States age 25 and older, 87.9% reported having a high school degree or higher,[15] compared with 78.8% of Asian-born immigrants and 76.8% of European-born immigrants, respectively.[16]

3)
So deep is the commitment to higher education in my own family, that one of the biggest flaws in my personality is the raw contempt I feel at the sight of an indigent or homeless black African on the streets of Seattle, an extremely rich city. How can you come all the way to America just to end up on the streets? That’s something you could easily have done in Harare or Lusaka or Maputo. This feeling of contempt is, of course, unfair (the person might have mental issues), but it’s nevertheless hard to suppress or dissolve.

4)
This is how it always happens: The homeless black African passing by me on the street looks at my face and knows I’m a black African, and therefore knows I know he is a black African. A moment after eye contact is established, he turns his face away from mine because it does not hide what I’m thinking.

Charles Mudede—who writes about film, books, music, and his life in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and the UK for The Stranger—was born near a steel plant in Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe. He has no memory...

16 replies on “The African Immigrant”

  3. Surely you didn’t just suggest that the only reason a person might be homeless is because of mental issues. You didn’t, did you? Please tell me you didn’t mean that.

    Please tell me you are aware that there might be differences in the circumstances between Zimbabwean elites, for example, and Somali refugees, for another example.

  4. So, brain drain is more of a factor in immigration from Africa than from other continents. It’s not necessarily a reason to be ashamed, but it’s nothing to be smug about either.

  5. Having spent some time in Maputo (and Beira and Chimoio and Beira) and worked with a number of people from Zimbabwe, Angola, Zambia and Kenya, I observed a far greater awareness of status and class hierarchy among the educated elite than I have personally experienced anywhere else. I’m sure that was in no small part to the fact that I was deep in the Development Industry; but I found the level of contempt that some of my colleagues — even a few for whom I had a great deal of respect — occasionally expressed for their less privileged citizens very disturbing. It was shocking to see people who had dedicated their lives and careers to the poorest of the poor treat our drivers, clerks and cleaners like…well…servants.

  6. @3: “Surely you didn’t just suggest that the only reason a person might be homeless is because of mental issues. You didn’t, did you? Please tell me you didn’t mean that.”

    Well, most homeless in the united states are generally transitional, but it’s not very outrageous to claim that many homeless who stay on the streets have some sort of mental issues and/or addiction problems.

  7. @3

    Please tell me you are aware that there might be differences in the circumstances between Zimbabwean elites, for example, and Somali refugees, for another example.

    One would hope. Considering how difficult it can be for a white native born American with all the privileges associated with it to pay for an education, it beggars belief to think a refugee who may be hobbled by any number of circumstances is going to have an easier time. The son of a university lecturer and an economic adviser to the President of Zimbabwe might just have some advantages in wealth and background such a refugee lacks.

    This is one of those posts I’m going to choose to read as written from a meta standpoint, of Charles cleverly pointing out the biases that people take for granted by pretending to be clueless about them.

  8. @6, yes, of course. But that’s not what I’m hearing Charles say; I’m hearing him say that the ONLY reason for homelessness is “mental problems”. That’s the way his statement was worded; he didn’t use “for example” or “among other things” or anything like that. He apparently assumes that a homeless person is either mentally ill or contemptible — his word, contempt — one or the other.

  9. @7: “Charles cleverly pointing out the biases that people take for granted by pretending to be clueless about them.”

    And that’s what I enjoy about these threads. The odd awareness through feigned cluelessness.

  10. As others have pointed out, the very things that makes Americans homeless are likely the things that make an immigrant homeless: Addiction, mental or physical illnesses, insurmountable financial/personal loss, etc.

    Though immigrants tend to be some of the most innovative and industrious Americans there are, they are not exempt from tragedy.

  11. “The homeless black African passing by me on the street looks at my face and knows I’m a black African, and therefore knows I know he is a black African.”

    You can tell by looking at a person’s face that they’re black African? How?

    I can tell someone’s African only by the way they dress and speak. But an African African is from the same place as African American, genetically. So what’s the diff?

  12. @5

    What you don’t realize, Mr. International Development man, is that those host country nationals hadn’t “dedicated their lives to treat the poorest of the poor” like you people “claim” to. They followed the gravy train, which are all the international NGOs that descend upon their countries. That’s where the money is. You development people who exist in the capital cities in your little western bubbles hovering around the embassy with all your drivers and servants are always so clueless. It never ceases to me amaze me!

    Try living in the REAL Africa, in the villages & dinky towns where you meet REAL Africans not the NGO money chasers. Oh but you people never do that though. Never meet the REAL Africans or see the REAL Africa. And yet. You’re so quick to come back to the States to speak for them. Development is such a fucking sham!

  13. @11

    You can’t tell? Wow. Lemme guess, born and raised in the PNW, right? Man this place is so white bread! There is a HUGE difference between African Americans and Africans. HUGE. In physical appearance, dress, style, everything. And I’m not even black! Man, this city is homogeneous. Whenever people speak of Seattle as being “diverse,” it makes me want to crack up. And comments like these just reaffirm the ridiculousness of it.

  14. @12: Whereas you, of course, are a man of the true Africa, ranging widely across the savannas and forests and cities and deserts of the continent, collecting the lore and culture of every people you meet.

  15. Umm…confluence@12 (whose shit smells like roses), that was kind of my point. I actually worked in development in rural Mozambique. I’m not sure what you consider “REAL” (maybe trolling on the interwebs?), but go visit the backcountry in Manica, Sofala and Tete sometime and tell me what you think.

    The stark difference between what I saw and experienced in a district-level or village clinic, and the way things work in Maputo is part of my disillusionment with the Development Industry (and for your benefit, confluence, since you are apparently not bright enough to figure out that the capitalization is meant as critical irony) and why I’m not in it anymore.

    Keep it REAL, confluence! You are my hero.

  16. @12: I don’t know, it does sounds plausible. Reminds me of Zora Neale Hurston writing (ages ago) of the upper-class mulatto elite mistreating blacks in Haiti, enforcing class strata to aid themselves and perpetuating systems of oppression for the colonialists.

    “Try living in the REAL Africa, in the villages & dinky towns where you meet REAL Africans not the NGO money chasers. Oh but you people never do that though. Never meet the REAL Africans or see the REAL Africa. And yet. You’re so quick to come back to the States to speak for them. Development is such a fucking sham!”

    I think you’re reading something into his post that he wasn’t attempting to say. Perhaps your idea of “REAL Africa” willfully covers up for the rest?

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