Meet my family: Gabriel

Gabriel is the 6-month-old son of the woman who comes over four times a week to help my Mama here prepare dinner. He spends most of his time at the house with his chest to his mom’s back, secured by a piece of cloth she ties around her chest. His brown feet stick straight out as he is momentarily suspended parallel to the ground when his mom bends over to fill a bucket with water from the tap. His mouth is open in a gurgle of happiness. 

However, with one glance in my direction his expression changes to one of shock then fear. His mouth opens in a cry.

Six-month-old Gabriel cannot fathom my skin tone anymore than I can fathom why we as a humanity have always found the ability to systematically rank ourselves by race.

I am the first white person Gabriel has ever seen. I am the first white person that many of the infants I encounter have seen. I cannot tell you about the adults because all the adults I’ve encountered are socialized enough to know it’s not usually acceptable to point at a person’s arm and burst into tears.

I’ve written before about the word “Yovo,” the term the Beninoise use in general for everyone who does not have an African skin tone. There is also a song that normally accompanies me whenever I travel outside my home. It’s catchy enough that it becomes stuck in my head by the time I reach my destination.

These things don’t make me angry. They don’t even really annoy me anymore. Mainly I’ve accepted them as a side effect of the respect and deference with which I am generally treated here. At mass, people use two hands to shake my one, a sign of respect in Beninoise culture. People greet me using the formal version of verbs. 

It is essentially, the opposite of what a child like Gabriel would experience if the situation were reversed. If he was the only noir in a neighborhood of blanches, history has shown his experience would be much different. For now, I will take the tears.