4. The privilege of space:
I remember when I was little, before we would go out as a family, my mom would sit us down, all the children in the household, to have a few words with us. She would tell us “This is us going out. Stay quiet, be quiet. Don’t move if I don’t give you permission and when I say it’s time to leave, you get up and leave without questions. I am warning all of you. Hum!” And then we would go out, and we would not move until mom was telling us it was ok to. At the bank, at friends’ house, at the hospital, in public spaces, we knew he had to behave, and we did.
I think I was around 17 or 18, on the subway in Paris. Near me, was seated an African woman, and her two children were in front of us. Then they started acting out, fighting and being loud. It did not last long. I saw their mom’s eyes growing severe. So severe. And I had flashbacks of my mom doing the same to us a few years back. She gave them THE LOOK, the African mom look, and they quieted down without a word.
My children are 9 and 11, and those of you who know them know they are well behaved ! As a mom, I do not tolerate nonsense from them when we are in public spaces. I have become that African mom. My friends and I, up until a few years ago, were always making fun of white people children who were soooo misbehaved, running everywhere all the time, without their parents reprimanding them from it. We thought it was a cultural thing. White people children were unruly, and ours weren’t. And we never questioned it, we just considered ourselves better moms lol.
It's only in recent years, through therapy, through the personal journeys that some of us have being taking up, that we understood that we were acting out of generational trauma. I understood it when my father explained to me one day, how it was for them during colonization. Enslaved and some colonized people never had the right to move from one city to another, one region to another, before asking permission from the “gouverneur”, the local colonial authority in place. My father also told me about being put in camps during the decolonization movement in Cameroon, and just leaving at night to go grab food for the community. For African American, the experience of that is called segregation. And mom had to have eyes on their children at all time, you did not want one of your children to attract the authorities' eyes on you ! So, everyone was staying close, children were quiet and as invisible as possible.
Yeah, so I realized behind the control, I may have acted out that trauma, where deep down inside of me, I knew that the space my children and I are moving in are not safe, are not for us. White little girls and boys grow up inherently knowing that the world belongs to them. They can go anywhere, they can do anything, the world is their oyster. My parents still have special prayers for me anytime I have to take a plane.
In sub-Saharan Africa capitals, there is the concept of compounds, closed or not, where only expatriates or well-off nationals live. The schools where their children go is usually close by, the stores they go to are close by. Other people have to have access to those space.
In Tunis, I live in a part of the city called Franceville. I was told when I came here, that that’s where French officers and colonizers were living during the protectorate era. They built a school for their children in the area, and Tunisians were living at the periphery of Franceville.
Today, Franceville is not such an area anymore, it has become a mixed part of Tunis. The French school is still there, and the pupils are mostly Tunisians. These dayes, la Marsa and Gammarth have replaced Franceville. Of course, everyone is free to come and go, but the area is mostly made up of expats and well-off nationals. The French school is mostly made up of French students. Friends who come from abroad to live in Tunisia, always tell me they want to live in La Marsa. Like everywhere else in the world, the best spaces are where you have mostly white neighbors. In the US, the policy is called redlining (if I am not mistaken). The policy exists in France too. Your children go to school in the area you live. And the “best” schools are not mixed. They are mostly white, let’s be frank about that. And everyone rushes to go live in those neighborhoods, to give their children the best chances.
See when I say racism is a system ? This is a good example. Do you realize how everyone of us have literally participated in a segregated system? So, children who do not attend white school are left behind; I am not going to give you numbers or write more about this, it’s not the goal of this post. I just want to attract your attention to the fact that racism is a thing, it’s everywhere, and denying it only slows any progress we can make towards a world that is fairer and spaces that are truly shared.