As a side note, just before I began to type this entry, Gorée was victim of the too frequent Senegalese power cut, but that horror is for another day. Today I will sing the curses of Senegalese vendors and how their blatant use of race tactics will prevent the unity that pan-Africanist like Senghor hoped will arrive. First, I find it highly offensive when someone plays the race card in commercial transactions. Our “blackness” comes at the ancestors – who are supposedly sacred in the West African cosmogony – who worked to maintain the traditions that are now used to feed African families on the dime of tourists. While I do not have anything against people using local knowledge to make money (that is the beginning of most products), I find it disgusting to think that Senegalese people think the best way to sell to the children of the Diaspora is the trade on the history that Gorée, at least partially, represents. I am also upset with myself for allowing such a seller to seduce me with this white bashing, black guilt-tripping lines (with the ubiquitous “I am not racist”). This racialism will only bred tension between the African-American community and, at least, West Africans. Small sellers are often may peoples first impression of a country. When people use race to force relationships, they will repel many African-Americans who would like real connections across the history and horror of the Atlantic slave trade.
Despite being barely being able to eat, I will stay on the island for its beauty and its history are mine just as much as the seller who does not realize how she destroys the ties that bind us.
indifferent
annoyed
