Is the World Wacky?

Is the World Wacky, or am I Upside down?
Of “Accaints” and Color

In 1971, I landed at JFK airport, New York. As I exited Immigration, I heard the lady say to a colleague, “Boy, do these foreigners have strange accents, don’t they?”
I shook my head and kept on moving, after all, what else was there to do? I had heard that Americans were funny that way. I hurried to the taxi stand, and approached one of the taxi drivers.

“Excuse me sir,” I said, “Could you guide me to the American Airlines ticket counter?”
The man was kind enough to give me the correct directions. As I walked briskly to the terminal, I shook my head. Boy, I thought, smiling at the rather pleasant black man, these West Africans certainly have a heavy accent. What most probably I did not hear was the taxi driver talking to one of his mates. Had I done so, I would have found that they probably were saying the same thing about me.

Puffing a little, since I am not in the best of shape, I finally arrived at the American Airlines counter and asked whether I was in time for the shuttle to Baltimore/Washington International. The white man, from what I dare say, some part of the Deep South, looked at me seriously, and in a rather loud voice, slowly explained that I was in time, and that the plane would be leaving in half an hour. He than asked me to take a seat in the lounge. To add to the rather loud voice, which was grating enough, was the very slow way he enunciated each word. I was dying to tell him that I might be a foreigner, but I did understand the English Language; indeed, I had taught it to the English. It was not his fault. After all, don’t we all talk a little slowly and very loudly to people who are not native speakers of the language? I guess, in his own way, he was trying to help me as much as possible. It was just that I was different from his normal cup of tea.

What is it about an accent that seems to make us pass an unconscious judgment on each other? Why do people assume that as long as they talk slowly and loudly, the message will get across? The person at the receiving end is not deaf, nor is a person of a perceived accent, a total moron. It is just that they have an “accaint.” From quaint Irish, Scottish, and Welsh, to tonal Far Eastern and pidgin flavored West Indian, to any other country or region that the British came in contact with, we all have an “accaint.” And, I must add, thank God for accents; otherwise, the world would be stiflingly same, like the beige fashion that was very much the “in” thing in the better part of the eighties.

Maybe, I look at the world through colored glasses and colored thinking; thus, I see before me a kaleidoscope of color that people would like to put in tight compartments of whites, blacks, browns and grays. I would like to look at the world as a gigantic impressionist painting full of life: of horror and beauty, of debilitating sorrow and enervating joy, of depth not superficiality, and of life as it is meant to be lived and enjoyed like an old fashioned medieval feast.

That reminds me, for almost thirty years we were known as colored, until one fine day, just as reestablishing certain political boundaries, we were given the joyous news that we were no longer colored. The powers that be probably expected us to go jumping for joy, screaming, “Hallelujah!” Funny, nobody ever did, or not to my knowledge. Maybe, it was not such a big deal after all. By the way, there was a strange interpretation of this new freedom, depending on the country we resided in, we were now either white or Asian-Americans. All of a sudden, it was decided that if they have an “accaint,” and they come from the same continent, they must be the same people. Euphemism, after all, is a wonderful blanket that covers up for a lot of nothing. Unless of course, somebody had a bit too much liquor, and then we quickly reverted to the “bleeping wogs who steal our jobs and our women.” Suffice is to say, I still say I am colored, and I can prove it by the many shades I have. At least, it is easier to prove color, than the lack of it. After all, if you have a little black and a whole lot of white, you are still colored.

Talking of color takes me back to another era. Maybe I dreamt about this, but years back, there were constant references, quite contemptuously, to people with part Native American ancestry as “breeds.” Time and the systematic elimination of the Native American have now taken a different turn. Today, most white men, whether they have any red blood in them or not, will proudly introduce themselves as part Cherokee or Cheyenne. As I said, time certainly changes one’s perspective, doesn’t it? The color bar is also flexible in some cases. I mean, in South Africa, under apartheid, the Japanese were given temporary white citizenship!!! Business can be a strong motivator for changing principles. And, look at the new classification of the Arabs and the Israelis as white, talk about the Emperor wearing no clothes.

I mean, did I miss something here, or is the world wacky?

Riaz Sahibzada