To: Yelias (and you pronounce it how??)

From: Qelemyelesh

Subj: First Blood

LD: Entry 2

You're a greenie? A tree-hugger?? A Birkenstock-wearing,

recycled-products-using, dolphin-free-veggie-tuna-eating, planet-savior wannabe?? (Da'am, brah!! Got three words for you: Everything is finite.)

Seem comedic....you think?? It's not gonna seem half as funny to you now as it will in ten years when you realize you know more about bureaucracy (hard word to spell, this!) than you do about environmental science. Yep, I'll be the resident cynic. You be the wide-eyed optimist. Personally, I still laugh in the dead of night, during one of those insomniac nights that occur more often nowadays, when I remember the 20-year-old me who thought a mud hut somewhere in Ethiopia would be just a-okay. Hah! Now, I think that a car without a CD changer is anathema to my nature. Yeah - I've come a long way, baby!

Even more remarkable than your optimism, Yelias (how do you pronounce that??) is that you got into Cornell with less than five books under your belt. C'mon, fess up - was it an athletic scholarship?? Are you the resident "Haile" for Cornell....hmmmm? You say, "naturally, I was built for running...." Naturally? As in "genetically predisposed towards marathon running as an Ethiopian," or "as a 5'6", 98 lbs man" kinda' built for running? I wanted to clarify before I jumped all over that one (sorry, am in that kind of mood today!).

This reminds me of a conversation I had in the distant past, early nineties to be exact, November 1994 to be more precise. Anyway, this Irish fellow and I had somehow broached the subject of race and I remember him distinctly telling me that Africans were generally better runners because their bones were lighter. Huh?!! Had nothing to do with talent, tenacity, fortitude?

Nope. Lighter bones. That's the reason. Why seemingly intelligent people easily succumb to that kind of racial stereotyping will always remain beyond me. I put it down to his misguided sense of racial superiority. It's that whole African/European thing - you know that unwritten rule that clearly states that if you are African or of African descent and you do something good, it's not your doing, really; however, if you do something bad/wrong, then you (and only YOU) are to blame, something about your racial predisposition. And not only that, but whatever transgression you committed is indicative of what your race, as a whole, is obviously capable of. But for the European or a descendant thereof, if s/he has done something positive, it is clearly because this person is naturally talented, hardworking and superior - a shining beacon to the other of her/his tribe, a thing to aspire to. Let her/him do something negative, and it's put down as an aberration, most probably caused by some sort of mental/physical abuse, and certainly no indication that anyone else of her/his tribe is capable of the same act. You see, that's why we "study" serial "killers" and we execute "murderers." The distinction here is surely not one of color, is it? Nah!

Oh, I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here, but hadda get that out there.

That said, I'm gonna risk the ire of many of our readers (yours included) when I say, I agree with your parents who insisted to you that you were Ethiopian and not "Black" or "African-American," or whichever is the politically correct term currently. Here's why I agree with them, and it's not out of a sense of racial superiority, as I'm sure everyone is assuming, but because, as Africans, we all tend to be pretty much of a similar hue.

Generally speaking, we don't go around saying, "that black guy" when we refer to someone of our race. We say, "...that Kenyan guy," "...that Somali girl," "...that Sudanese kid," "...that cute Senegalese," "...that intelligent Nigerian," etc., etc. You get my drift. If familiar enough with a certain national, I have no problem identifying the person by the country. In fact, I'd rather identify someone by their country than by their supposed color. If I'm uncertain, then I go regional, identify them as African, Asian, European, and Native or Latin American.

Americans in general, however, have a problem with this. They are less racially cohesive than much of the olde world. A "white" American is most likely l descended from progenitors from several different European countries - should s/he then be referred to as a "Euro-American?" (As an aside: were you aware that way back when, the Irish, the Italians and the Spaniards were considered non-white in the census??) What of the "black" person who is light-skinned and blue-eyed, and the "African-American" whose great-grandmother was Iroquois and whose grandfather was white? Are they not just as American as their non-hyphenated counterparts. Better still, what of the Tiger Woods, the "CauBlaNasians?" It irritates me to no end when I hear Caucasian Americans referred to as just "American" and everyone else as a hyphenate - "Native-American," "Black-American," "Latino/Latina-American, "Asian-American." And many of these people can't even claim any other place but the good ol' US of A as their country. As far as I am concerned, the only hyphenated Americans should be the foreign-born who were "naturalized." Period. Simple. Moving on...

So, when your mother and father insisted that you were not "black" but Ethiopian, it may have been more out of a sense of national pride, a sense of national identity, a need instill in you the love of "home," rather than anything whatever to do with "internal racism." Even you make the distinction that your father meant that you're not "Black

American/African-American," i.e., not American. Was he right?

I'm not even trying to say that our people don't have their own issues with color. I was recently slapped with that bit of reality. I was educated in the complexes of the different complexions (Qey, Qey-damma, Teyim, TiQur).

But there are less politically correct labels, I know (barria, shanQo,

shanQila), and were I a better student of Ethiopics, I could probably do an etymological study and say with certitude that it was the ferenj who introduced "color-coding" into our language. Perhaps, we stopped at Teyim and never graduated to TiQur until our European nemeses taught us differently. Perhaps, shanQila referred to a distinct ethnic group with the characteristic of very dark skin rather than a derogatory word meant to offend. And the word barria did not become synonymous with "black people" until we learned to equate our own shameful history with the European/American slavery history. Whatever. The deal is, there is no need for us to define or redefine ourselves through the eyes of people who can't even come to terms with their own complexes let alone begin to understand ours.

So, to sum up, I'm not "Black," I'm African and I'm not "African-American," I'm Ethiopian. If I were to become naturalized, I'd be an American, originally from Ethiopia. If it were possible to retain both citizenships, I'd be an Ethiopian-American. Currently, I consider myself an Americanized Ethiopian.

But not everyone can so easily compartmentalize their identity. I have a friend who was born in Kenya from parents of Indian descent, and raised in Uganda and the UK. He says he feels African even though people too readily identify him as an Indian with a British accent. So, in defense (I'm guessing) he considers himself multi-cultural. There's a new category for the census bureau to consider!

So, YeliasiyE, one day, when you're older and wiser (and no, the two stages of life don't necessarily accompany each other), you too will come to a definitive moment, perhaps experience an epiphany while you're watching football and eating tacos dipped in awazE and decide that you are .....?

Hmmm, I guess, time will tell.

Hope this is not too much cud for you to chew over. Don't tarry too long on your reply. We have be a few days left. I look forward to your rebuttal.

Qelem-yelesh (The Americanized)

I was curious to know what you'd think of my first entry. Let me start by getting a few things straight. I apologize for a couple of things I wrote. First, the comment about getting into Cornell without reading. I said this because I think people often jump the gun when they think of Ivy Leaguers ("They think they know everything..."). This is true, since I've been in contact with them--for some. I just wanted to get straight that I'm not an intellectual, and surely wasn't when I arrived. I was just a kid from a small Midwestern city trying to get as far away from home as possible; I got pretty close, so at least I got that right. Seriously though, when I came to visit the place in my senior year I was talking with some students and the conversation just suddenly shifted into "intellecutal phase." One asked, "Who are your favorite authors?"

I thought, "Is this for real? This seems like a scene right out of a movie poking fun at Ivy League schools!" No matter; we when to play basketball later that night so I realized the "intellects" up here are often rounded out, and that's part of the reason I'm here. Sorry that took so long to get out.

Secondly, no, I didn't get an athletic scholarship. In fact, when I went to the cross country and distance running coach in my first year, he told me, after hearing my times, that I probably wouldn't be able to even keep up in practices, much less walk on to the team as a junior varsity runner! Wow, what a relief: it was confirmed that I SUCKED as a runner. But he told me friend the same, and he ended up running with the team for a year. Maybe I shoulda stuck with it. Who cares; it doesn't matter now. BUT, with respect to my comment of being naturally born for running...it had NOTHING to do with bones being light and other racist bs. I've heard the same before, and the one about light bones seems to be an especially popular explanation. (When I inquired why Kenyans, Ethiopians, and others dominate world class distance running, my high school running coach, a white man, told me about living conditions. Okay, this is in part true. Most of these runners work harder in their day-to-day lives than we do during hardcore training. But here's when it gets good. He proceeded to tell me, "...and you know, they never know when they might get their next meal so they might have to run down a gazelle..." I almost fell on my back. I coudln't believe he would say such a thing and expect me to take him seriously--ESPECIALLY since he KNEW I was Ethiopian! But again, he probably thinks of me as an American, not an African...What was worse was when I asked him the same question a year later to show one of my friends that ran with me on the team how racist our coach was, and he bit the bait again...."they run down their food".

My goodness. I understand some people in Ethiopia and other places still live a rural lifestyle, but didnt we start domesticating animals some time ago? Maybe I'm wrong and the stereotypical view of Africa is correct: we/they all live in trees, swinging from branch to branch in harmony with monkeys an other jungle biota...(hmmm, sarcasim doesn't work as well over e-mail for me; sorry). But lastly, when I said I was naturally built for running, I did imply my size is an advantage
(when's the last time you met/saw a world class distance runner that weighed 210 lbs.?) I also implied that I do have a work ethic that is condusive to endurance activities such as running. Yes, this and my comment about getting into Cornell without reading make me sound quite conceited. Maybe so, but in truth, if you met me in person, I think you'd realize, yes, I'm very confident in myself (that's healthy in my opinion), but I'm not conceited. I hope this wasn't your perception based on my first entry.

By the way, I'm VERY cynical; my Hotmail address is no_hope8@hotmail.com. Yeah, I don't have much hope or faith in anything anymore, and this incident in Ny and DC has confirmed my biases for me. BUT, I do wake up each morning with the belief that I might as well try my best to do something good. That way I can look back on my life and say, "Yeah, chances are what I did won't make a damn difference in the long run, but at least I gave it my all." After all, what else am I gonna do? Work for Citibank, or better yet, the World Bank Group! HA! Sorry if I offend you or any of our readers because there are many Ethiopians working in the WB, but I'm convinced the Bank, and any othe bureaucracy of the sort, is NOT on the side of non-industrial countries, non-Western nations (well, their populations; the Bank is often buddy buddy with corrupt gov'ts/cronies getting rich at the expense of their peoples' well-being). If you have any views on this, please share sometime, even if not in an LD.

Thanks for your comments on my status. I guess I'm now American now that I'm naturalized. But I considered myself a member of the US before then. But I don't know if I said this last time, but I feel like I identify myself based on two major criteria: my ideology and my day-to-day experiences. I live a western lifestyle; no doubt about that. But as for the other factor goes, which I try to emphasize, I don't think I'm of any particular counrty region. Instead, if you share my views and goals, and I find out I can trust and depend on you, you're my family. This holds true no matter where you're from: the US, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia...wherever. The thing is views and ideology often form as a result of where you grow up, and I won't deny that. I just don't think I can simply side with people that came from the same place as me or even look like me. I HOPE we can bond, but it's no guarantee. While we're on this notion of race, do your experiences in the US differ from those in other places? I think racism is a near-permanent factor in any heterogenous society, but the US has a special brand of racism. It's been formulated on this soil, tested and re-tested, and set to perfection; certified, grade A racial oppression. If you want it, there's one place you can count on it: the good 'ol US of A. I ask this because of my point in my first message: that I'm an .... Ethiopian, I guess. My friends profess to be Black Nationalist (I also support the views and such, which is part of the reason I'm living with them), and in their theories to liberate Africans, both from the continent and its diaspora, their first goal is always the same: Africa needs to be freed!

This entails a lot of course: debt relief from huge corporations and mulitialteral institutions like the WB/IMF duo we all know and love; control of our own natural resources (THIS is why I'm interested in the envrionment; not to save trees for trees sake. That's a view of extremely privileged people that CHOOESE to not worry about other things, like poverty. I agree that all things in nature are finite, but as a social justice issue, who gets how much of those finite resources???); etc.

Anyway, they profess that we need to unite with our Black brothers from all over the world. Yes, my housemates do acknowledge we have differences, sometimes huge, yet, we need to unite and recognize depite our differences we all have one enemy in common: John D. Whiteman (the D stands for Devil, in case you were curious). What is your take on this? I think the situation of Rastafarians going to Etiopia and establishing themselves in an area Haile Selassie set aside for them provides an interesting case study: most of those Ethiopians dislike them and don't consider their Caribbean brethren Ethiopian. Hmmm, Marcus Garvey was
onto something, but is it practical? Are we too conditioned, as respective groups, to embrace the other as kin? I'd be curious to know what you think based on your thoughts and experiences.

Sincerely,
Yelias/Elias